Well, Easter is just about to hop in, so I thought some bunny better discuss colored eggs!
If you’ve ever wondered how bunnies and eggs got yolked together for this holiday, here’s a little snippet from a Garrison Keillor Writer’s Almanac post in 2007.
“The word ‘Easter’ comes from an ancient pagan goddess worshipped by Anglo Saxons named Eostre. According to legend, Eostre once saved a bird whose wings had frozen during the winter by turning the bird into a rabbit. Because the rabbit had once been a bird, it could still lay eggs, and that rabbit became our Easter Bunny. Eggs were a symbol of fertility in part because they used to be so scarce during the winter. There are records of people giving each other decorated eggs at Easter as far back as the 11th century.”
Uh, okay. At any rate, the sure signs of spring’s arrival aren’t just blooming daffodils, but also those ubiquitous packages of PAAS® egg dye that appear in stores a couple weeks before Easter. This company was founded in New Jersey in the late 1880s, and became an Easter fixture for several generations, but obviously, there are other ways to dye eggs using natural products.
The basic process remains the same – either boil eggs beforehand or boil them with the dye, along with some vinegar to set the color, and leave them exposed to the dye until you like the color. (If you need coaching on the absolutely perfectly done hard boiled egg, the folks over at Cook’s Kitchen have done their usual exhaustive research.)
As far as colors go, for light orange use paprika, for soft green soak use spinach, for pale gold use those carrot tops you always just throw in the compost. There are more options listed here, and free feel to experiment on your own.
The latest Saveur “Best 100” issue also featured Chinese tea eggs – intriguing creations made by first boiling the eggs, slightly cracking the shells, then steeping them in a tea/soy mixture. My result yielded an egg that looked like polished marble, but there were no broken teeth!
Not surprisingly, the days following Easter are aptly dubbed National Deviled Egg Week. Most people probably have a traditional family recipe they use, along with that deviled egg dish they inherited from Aunt Sally, but here’s an article with some more ideas as well.
btw … the corned beef experiment did work! Although the yogurt in the liquid was, well, interesting, the beef was yummy and not grey, though not quite as pink as that with typical nitrates.