Egg beater

“ When no more eggs are to be found, the mashing process begins. The egg, it may be here mentioned, has a flexible or leathery shell; it is quite round, and somewhat larger than a hen's egg. The whole heap is thrown into an empty canoe and mashed with wooden prongs; but sometimes naked Indians and children jump into the mass and tread it down, besmearing themselves with yolk and making about as filthy a scene as can well be imagined. ”

“ Eggs, when not fresh, are more or less liable to disease. I might even say more. When not fresh, they are diseased. On this point we have the testimony of Drs. Willich and Dunglison. The truth is, that the yolk of the egg has a strong tendency to decomposition, and this decomposing or putrefying process begins long before it is perceived, or even suspected, by most people. There is much reason for believing that a large proportion of the eggs eaten in civic life,—except when we keep the poultry ourselves,—are, when used, more or less in a state of decomposition. ”

“ In the beating of eggs, it should be remembered that for some purposes, as in making some kinds of sponge cake, they are beaten until nearly frothy, as shown in Fig. 10, when they do not stand up nor cling to the whip; whereas, for other purposes, as in making meringue, they are beaten until they are stiff enough to stand up well and to adhere to the whip, as Fig. 11 shows. When egg whites are to be beaten stiff, care should be taken not to continue the beating too long. ”

“ The King shuddered as he said "eggs," and Kaliko also shuddered, and so did the Long-Eared Hearer; for eggs are the only things that the nomes greatly dread. The reason for this is that eggs belong on the earth's surface, where birds and fowl of all sorts live, and there is something about a hen's egg, especially, that fills a nome with horror. If by chance the inside of an egg touches one of these underground people, he withers up and blows away and that is the end of him—unless he manages quickly to speak a magical word which only a few of the nomes know. ”

“ You break a small round hole in the top of the egg, and after having removed some of the white, which is rather heavy for the stomach, and having thoroughly beaten up the yolk, you set the egg on its end in the ashes, at a little distance from the fire, carefully turning it now and then to prevent the shell from cracking. Whilst cooking, it must occasionally be removed from the fire, and the batter must be stirred well, or else it will stick to the sides of the shell and burn. ”

“ One of the eggers, still under the influence of drink, pulls his trigger, and an unfortunate sailor is seen to reel in agony. Three loud cheers fill the air. All at once rush on the malefactors; a horrid fight ensues, the result of which is that every egger is left on the rock beaten and bruised. Too frequently the fishermen man their boats, row to the shallops, and break every egg in the hold. ”

“ Columb, about sixty years ago, on Shrove Tuesday, each child in a dame’s school was expected by the mistress to bring an egg, and at twelve o’clock the children had an egg-battle. Two children stood facing each other, each held an egg, and struck the end of it against that of the opponent lengthwise, the result being that one or both were broken.
“An unbroken egg was used again and again to fight the rest, and so the battle raged until all, or all but one, of the eggs were broken. ”

“ To prevent this, first a hard-boiled, and then a marble egg may be given them to fight with, taking care, at the same time, to prevent their access either to the hen or to any real eggs. Another strange propensity is a passion for sucking each other’s blood, which is chiefly exhibited when they are moulting, when they have been known to peck each other naked, by pulling out the new feathers as they appear, and squeezing with their beaks the blood from the bulbs at the base. ”

“ A full set of eggs is always desirable, if they can be obtained, but, as the old saying is, "A half-loaf is better than no bread." The contents may be removed by making a hole in the side of the egg with an egg drill, and sucking out the white and yolk with a glass blow-pipe, or by means of a little syringe with a bit of rubber tubing attached to the nozzle. ”

“ In noticing a little book on manners that recently appeared, the New York Sun feelingly inveighs in this wise against eating boiled eggs from a glass:
“We are glad to think that the time has gone by when Americans with any pretensions to refinement needed to be informed that an egg beaten up in a glass is an unsightly mess that has often turned the stomach of the squeamish looker-on. Those who cannot learn to eat boiled eggs from the shell will do well to avoid them altogether. ”

“ Over and over again it is stated in articles that large quantities of animal food and rich meals in the mash are very stimulating and wear the hen out. This is a great mistake. When the hen is being supplied [146] with the proper ingredients for a large egg production she is not being stimulated, but rather helped and sustained in the natural way.
“Egg Foods” Kill Layers
On the market, to-day, is found an ever increasing number of preparations advertised as “egg foods”; “foods” warranted to produce eggs without fail and in record breaking quantities. ”

“ A Liverpool gentleman informs the editor, that in that town and neighbourhood they are still common, and called paste eggs. One of his children brought to him a paste egg at Easter, 1824, beautifully mottled with brown. It had been purposely prepared for the child by the servant, by being boiled hard within the coat of an onion, which imparted to the shell the admired colour. Hard boiling is a chief requisite in preparing the pasch egg. In some parts they are variously coloured with the juices of different herbs, and played with by boys, who roll them on the grass, or toss them up for balls. ”

“ Grease each egg with sweet lard, and as you do so, lay them in a keg or jar, or old tin vessels that are out of use; put them in a dry closet and keep them covered over; if they are put in the cellar, they are liable to mould, which spoils them entirely. Do not put in any cracked ones, or they will injure the rest. In this way they have been known to keep a year, and were nearly as good for puddings, or batter cakes, as fresh eggs. They do not do to boil, or make pound or sponge cake, as they lose part of their lightening property. ”

“ It would seem that no one could or would wantonly ruin an egg, a thing so useful, so inoffensive; and yet the proper cooking of an egg is one of the most difficult of all culinary arts. Millions of eggs are ruined every year in American kitchens. Better that the whole annual output should be cast into the sea than that one egg should offend the eye and the palate of the expectant breakfaster.
It grieves me to be obliged to confess that in hotels and on dining-cars, particularly west of Pittsburgh, many of my fellow citizens are weak before the temptation of hot cakes, drenched in syrup. ”

“ Roll these into balls not bigger than a very small marble, flour them, and throw them into boiling water till they are set.
In many parts of the Continent, hard-boiled yolks of eggs, served whole, are used as egg balls. A much cheaper way of making egg balls is as follows:—Beat up one egg, add a teaspoonful of chopped blanched parsley, some pepper and salt, and a very little grated nutmeg. Sift a bottle of ordinary mixed savoury herbs in a sieve, and take about half a saltspoonful of the dust and mix this with the egg, This will be found really better than using the herbs themselves. ”

“ Very few boys could get such eggs; when they did, they put them away in bureau drawers till they ripened and the mothers smelt them, and threw them out of the window as quickly as possible. Always, after breakfast, Easter Morning, we came out on the street and fought eggs. We pitted the little ends of the eggs against one another, and the fellow whose egg cracked the other fellow’s egg won it, and he carried it off. I remember grass and wheat colored eggs in such trials of strength, and onion and logwood colored eggs; but never calico eggs; they were too precious to be risked ”

“ If a dish of putrid beef were placed on the table before people they would shrink back in horror, yet they will eat eggs which have been produced by hens which have been fed on these identical ingredients, apparently entirely oblivious of the fact that the hen performs no miracle in the production of an egg, but simply manufactures the egg from the materials, whatever they may be, which she gathers into her system. ”

“ The fertile eggs should be opaque or clouded, and must be carefully replaced under the hen without shaking. If during incubation an egg should be broken, it must be removed, and the remainder taken out and cleansed in tepid water, otherwise the contents of the broken egg will cause the others to cling to the hen's fathers, and they too may become fractured. ”

“ He did not waste much of his ammunition on the railroad men he served at night but seemed to be waiting for a young man or woman from Bidwell to come in to show what he could do. On the counter in the restaurant there was a wire basket kept always filled with eggs, and it must have been before his eyes when the idea of being entertaining was born in his brain. There was something pre-natal about the way eggs kept themselves connected with the development of his idea. At any rate an egg ruined his new impulse in life. ”

“ Break every egg by itself, in a saucer, before you put it into the pan, that in case there should be any bad ones, they may not spoil the others.
Eggs are beaten most expeditiously with rods. A small quantity of white of egg may be beaten with a knife, or a three-pronged fork. ”

“ The mother partridge runs many dangers as she sits upon her dark-coloured eggs in some sheltered spot, for weasels and stoats will attack her and steal her eggs if she leaves them for a moment, or kill her herself if they can take her unawares in the dark night. She could never hope to rear her young ones if they did not come out of the egg well covered with down, and able to run and pick by her side while she and the father scratch the ground with their short blunt claws to get ant-cocoons, and later on worms and insects for them. ”

“ A final precaution to take is never to allow egg whites to stand after they are beaten. If this is done, the leavening power of the eggs is reduced, because the air soon escapes from beaten eggs and leaves underneath them a clear liquid that can never be beaten up. For instance, eggs that are to be used for boiled icing should not be beaten until the sirup has finished boiling. However, eggs that have been separated but not beaten may stand for a couple of hours, provided they are covered and kept in a cool place.
POINTS TO OBSERVE IN COOKING EGGS ”

“ Any of the varnishes which make the shell of an egg air tight tends to restrain the activities of bacterial life since the bacteria cannot live without air. The officials who inspect food should direct special care to the storing of eggs in order that no damage may result from keeping them too long in cold storage or otherwise. It must not be understood that poisoning by eggs is of common occurrence. In fact it is very rare. The fact that the egg itself, which is such a common article of diet, may be unsanitary and improperly kept is a matter of great concern to the consumer. ”

“ It has, I believe, been often remarked, that a hen is only an egg’s way of making another egg. ”

“ Poisonous Principles in Eggs. —While fresh eggs for most people form a food product entirely devoid of danger, nutritious and easily digestible, eggs may easily become injurious and even poisonous. According to experiments made by Bouchard (Scientific American, August 11, 1896, page 95) , even fresh eggs, unless the sanitary conditions in which the fowls live are well cared for, may become very poisonous. The fowl producing eggs, as a rule, is not a cleanly animal, and this is especially true of the duck. ”

“ No egg should be used for culinary purposes with the slightest taint in it, as it will render perfectly useless those with which it has been mixed. Eggs that are purchased, and that cannot be relied on, should always be broken in a cup, and then put into a basin: by this means stale or bad eggs may be easily rejected, without wasting the others. ”

“ You have hit it exactly, Bishop. Investigation on Mr. Beverly's part led to the discovery that the annoying emergence of three or four different sorts of chicks from the same setting was due to the vagrant disposition of the hens to lay their eggs in any nest that happened to come handy, with a resultant uncertainty as to their genesis when they were put to set; and to the farther discovery that the surprise eggs at breakfast had been laid in such out-of-the-way places that they had not been found and collected until long after their period of edible usefulness was past. ”

“ And our curses on them that boil the eggs too hard! What use is an egg that is hard to any person on earth? ”

“ I knew of course that eggs in France these days were difficult. In some places the Americans have been forbidden, on account of the scarcity, to buy either eggs or chickens; a ruling which officers have been known to evade by the simple expedient of renting laying hens. But no such prohibition exists at present in Saint Thiebault. Just the other day a lad told me he had consumed twelve fried eggs at one sitting. ”