I always imagine that I''ll be able to tell when an egg has gone bad. I'll crack it open, and in addition to smelling like a rotten egg, it'll probably look like a rotten egg too. Anyway, if you bring the eggs home and keep them in the fridge, I don't think they'll go bad that quickly.
Okay, what comes next is really disgusting, so be prepared. I left 2 or 3 eggs in the refrigerator when I left for winter break. When I bought fresh eggs in 2008 I didn't exactly toss the old eggs away because once again, I don't really believe in rotten eggs. Plus, they were smaller than my new eggs so I could always tell the difference between the two. In any case, I'd trained myself to go for the newer larger eggs over the last few weeks, and had almost forgotten that I had old eggs left there until tonight when I decided to make some hard boiled eggs.
A while back I was teasing Martin about being a stickler for expiration dates, and we decided to look up how exactly one tests for spoiled rotten eggs. Too bad neither of us kept eggs around long enough to actually try it out.
Basically, "there is a small air pocket in the large end of the egg. When the egg is fresh, the pocket is only about 1/8th of an inch deep and as large around as a dime. As the egg ages, however, it loses both moisture and carbon dioxide - shrinking - so that the size of the air space increases. And the size of the air space determines the buoyancy of the egg.
So if you submerge a very fresh egg in water, it will lie on the bottom. An egg that is a week old will lie on the bottom but bob slightly. An egg that is 3 weeks old will balance on its small end, with the large end reaching for the sky. And a bad egg will float."
THIS IS ALL TRUE. AND FASCINATING.
I put one of the small eggs in a cup of water just for kicks, and seeing it floating at the top was seriously one of the most disgusting things ever. Then I had to test all the eggs in my refrigerator just to be safe. My final genius conclusion? The 2 eggs from 2007 had definitely gone BAD (surprise, surprise).
Friends, when in doubt, test those eggs.
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1 comment:
boooo. i was expecting a story of, i unknowing boiled the eggs, cracked them open, and thus found FOUL GREEN SMELLY EGGS.
or better yet, cracked them open, and thus FOUND A DEAD CHICK FETUS WORSE LOOKING THAN THE PRODUCT OF THE WORST TERATOGEN KNOWN TO MAN.
sigh. i am disappointed.
i had hard boiled eggs too tonight!
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