I spent so much time blathering on about eggs I never got to bake the Alaska, and now I have to leave town! Back Monday to try it again! – Joe

What exactly happens as an egg ages? Well you remember I mentioned that eggs have those tiny pores in their shells (the ones through which aromas and undesirable microbes can enter). Well, those holes are two-way streets. Stuff can get in, but stuff can also get out. Specifically carbon dioxide, which is initially stored in an egg as carbonic acid. That acid is what’s responsible for keeping the white of the egg firm, since a low (acidic) pH causes the proteins in the white to clump together. As the carbonic acid converts to gaseous CO2 and leaves the egg, the pH goes up, and that has all sorts of consequences for the egg’s texture.

All you egg aficionados out there have undoubtedly noticed that eggs contain two kinds of white (or “albumen”). There’s the “thick” albumen, which you find right around the yolk. The “thin” albumen forms the outside layer and is fairly runny no matter how fresh the egg is. Yet in a fresh egg the proportion of thick to thin albumen is about 60-40. As the egg ages that proportion changes, and can go as high as 40-60 in a very old egg.

All this talk of egg freshness makes me thing again of my grandmother and the stories she’d tell about “winter” eggs when she was a child. That was about 1918. Back then fresh eggs were almost unheard of in the deep winter months. We don’t much think about it now, but chickens go through a natural period of molting each year. They lose old feathers and get news ones. It happens in winter, during which time hens lay few if any eggs. Nowadays commercial egg operations control molting by manipulating light and feed to bring it on quicker and get it finished faster. Whereas molting once took months, so-called “force molted” hens get it over and done with in just a couple of weeks. Which allows us to enjoy fresh eggs all year round.

By all rights I should be talking about the history of baked Alaska, but all this egg talk is just too darn fun. That’s an outstanding question, reader Nick. And believe it or not there is some data out there on this. Turns out that in blind taste tests, consumers can’t tell the difference between white eggs and brown eggs, which many chefs and TV personalities swear are superior. Here in Kentucky we get a lot of green-shelled eggs (which thrill my Dr. Suess-loving daughters). The study didn’t specifically mention them, but my guess is that a blind taster wouldn’t be able to tell any difference there, either.

And would you believe that blind tasters also can’t tell the difference between fresh and old (refrigerated) eggs? Especially when they’re scrambled or fried, the vast majority of people can’t taste the difference between month-old refrigerated eggs and eggs that are fresh from the chicken.

Yes in fact they do, reader Sarah. Really big egg operations don’t, but smaller ones still employ them. My buddy John who runs a small chicken ranch/egg farm was the one who first told me about nest eggs. He said he could never afford to buy the ceramic ones, but as luck would have it […]

Chicken feed, scratch, nest eggs. Why is there so much chicken-related money slang? I haven’t a clue. But then I guess there are quite a few garden-related money words: beans, lettuce, cabbage. I tend to favor bread and dough myself. But then I digress…no surprises there.

Most of us foodie types are at least peripherally aware of the rise in chicken-keeping as a hobby. I’ve noticed several small coops in my neighborhood here in the Louisville Highlands, and I often come across escapees running around in nearby parks. Indeed the missus and I nearly bought a house from a fellow who kept chickens and let them roam freely around his fenced-in yard, a big double lot. He normally kept six, but that particularly week had only five thanks to a hawk that had recently moved into the neighborhood (a small pile of feathers in the middle of the yard marked hen number six’s last known location).

My grandmother used to marvel at how little I grasped about the basic workings of a chicken. But then she was born in 1908 and grew up in a farm town in east-central Illinois. I spent my formative years in a Chicago suburb dropping quarters into video games. It gave me a totally different perspective on live poultry.

It wasn’t until a few years ago that I encountered my first chicken farmer, and of course I had no end of questions for him. The information I picked up was fascinating. For instance, I had no idea that hens need not know the ways of a rooster to start producing eggs. So-called “blood spots” are not, as is popularly thought, tiny chicken embryos. They happen when a blood vessel breaks somewhere near the yolk as the egg is forming.

Just thought I’d head this question off at the pass: what about eggshell color? What determines that? The answer: the breed of the hen. Different types of chickens lay different color eggs. I know there are a lot of folks out the under the impression that a brown shell is somehow indicative of a “less processed” egg, but isn’t so. Brown eggs can come from a commercial egg farm just as easily as white ones (and many do).

Contrary to popular myth, chicken eggshells are never, ever bleached. The reason for this is quite simple: eggshells are porous. The most an egg processor will do to an eggshell is apply a thin layer of oil or wax to replace the natural mucous layer that comes off when the eggs are washed. The layer helps keep contaminants out and extends the egg’s life.