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Buying Eggs
Buying eggs is even easier than buying milk. You find the right size, the right color and
cross eggs off your shopping list. All eggs you find in retail are grade AA, the top grade, the only
question you may have is about their freshness. Today’s eggs are much fresher than they used to
be because of stricter industry regulations on storage, that require refrigeration all the way from
the farms to the store shelf. Until the late 1980s most markets had their eggs displayed along
with bread and other non-perishable items on non-refrigerated shelves.
Although you cannot tell for sure which carton has the freshest eggs, most cartons do
have a hidden number somewhere on the side that shows the packing date. The system uses the
Julian date. The number indicates the numerically consecutive day of the year they packed the
carton, with January 1 being “1”, and continuing to December 31, which is “365.” For example,
nd
eggs they packed on February 2 have 33 as packing date. Pick a carton with a number closest to
the day you are shopping. The industry is now slowly replacing packing date with an expiration
date on the carton. The day they stamp is 30 days after packing.
Your kitchen is where you can really tell how fresh an egg is. A common way to measure
the freshness of an egg is the water test. A fresh egg is heavier than water, it sinks and flips
readily onto its side when you immerse it. If it sinks but sits on one end, air has begun to
accumulate in the air pocket in the top end, which means it is been around for a while. It is still
good to eat but if enough air has collected inside for the egg to float, it is past its prime. These
older eggs are better in baking than served at a meal.
Here is another test. Break the egg onto a flat plate—the way the white behaves gives its
age away. The runnier and more watery the white, the older the egg. The yolk also changes over
time but not quite so obviously. It flattens, and the color becomes mottled. If the egg white runs
out on the plate as a thin pancake syrup with a flat yolk in the middle, discard the whole thing
(even better, feed it to any of your pets).
Large eggs are the standard American and Canadian baking size. Nearly all recipes call
for large eggs, but one egg size smaller or larger doesn’t make the slightest difference in any
recipe, except you may need to adjust the liquid ingredient slightly. Variables in other
ingredients and cooking techniques have much more effect on the final product than the size of
the eggs. Only when you are using three or more eggs in a recipe does the difference start to add
up. Here’s a convenient conversion table for different sizes.
Egg Size Equivalents
Jumbo
X-Large
Large
Medium
Small
1
2
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
5
6
7
1
3
4
5
7
8
You may want to buy different sized eggs than the customary large, if lower price or
other reasons justify it. Use the table above to help you recalculate your recipe. To compare
prices of various sizes, the most direct way is compare their prices per unit weight (pound or kg).
The following table lets you do that easily.
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