Now for something entirely different. We had our mid-winter egg oiling party last night where we got together in the galley and re-oiled all our eggs. Huh, you are thinking, re-oil our eggs? It turns out that oiled eggs stay fresh for long periods of time. We get oiled eggs from New Zealand at the beginning of the winter (early February) and they will stay fresh until November. We only have to re-oil them halfway through the winter. I imagine most of you living in North America will not have heard of this technique, I know I had not, but by coating the eggs in vegetable oil they stay perfectly fresh without refrigeration.
I am told that oiled eggs are very common in New Zealand and eggs in grocery stores are not even refrigerated. They just sit on the shelf. Think of all the energy we could save in the US if we used this technique.
So every mid-winter at Pole we unbox all our eggs, pick up each one, coat it in new oil, rotate it 180 degrees in the egg crate, and put them all back in storage. And of course since this is the South Pole we make a party of it. To prove that I am not making this up here are the pictures.
4 comments:
I'm torn between thinking this is a great new theme for a party and the realization that it's no place for someone whose nickname is Butterfingers! Thanks for the day brightener!
Wow! I'll be trying this at home--I can always use more refrigerator space.
I seem to remember a blog post from last year about oiling of eggs not being allowed anymore for some reason
Ah yes, the great egg boondoggle of winter 2009 where 400 dozen eggs had to be sent back to NZ for destruction, and there wasn't time to get replacement eggs sent to Pole before it closed for the winter. That wasn't about egg oiling. It was because the eggs that had been sent to the station had not been washed by the supplier before being oiled. The powers that be decided they weren't safe for Polies to eat because of the possibility of contamination on the eggshells.
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