growing up, we always coloured eggs at eastertime. i remember dropping the little dye tablet into the vinegar and watching the colour spread in preparation. i remember the smell of the vinegar. i remember bending the metal holder to just the right shape to balance my egg halfway in the dye to make the perfect coloured stripes. i remember crying when my egg fell in and cracked on the bottom of the bowl. i remember trying to find a way to dry the egg without getting drips on one side.
unfortunately, egg dying isn't part of the easter tradition in the uk. richard and i realized that this might be due in part to the fact that our chicken eggs aren't white here, they're brown. we went today to try to find some white eggs to do some colouring with homemade dye, and the only white eggs we could find were duck eggs! we bought six, and will try to use some of the dying techniques available online in lieu of the purchased kits. next year, i'll remember to have someone send me some dye from the us, but we'll still have to be creative with the eggs themselves.
happy easter everyone!
[written 7 april; posted easter sunday]
Last week I read an interesting article in a Polish newspaper, about why it's so hard to get white eggs in Poland. Apparently the reason is that several decades ago, when farmers started introducing high-quantity-farming techniques, the chickens that were used on huge, automated farms, all laid white eggs. People quickly learned to associate white eggs with lesser quality, mass produced eggs. Even though one has nothing to do with the other, people are still skeptical of white eggs.
Posted by: Mike | April 08, 2007 at 06:48 PM