148 Fun Facts About Egg

Which New Zealand bird lays one of the largest eggs for its body size of any bird?

The kiwi's egg fills about a fifth of the female's body: she eats three times her usual amount while it grows, then has to fast for the last days because there is no room left for food.

Which hummingbird of Cuba, the smallest bird in the world, lays eggs no bigger than a pea?

The bee hummingbird is about 6 centimetres long and weighs around 2 grams, yet Guinness gives the record for the smallest egg to its Jamaican cousin, the vervain hummingbird.

The largest egg of any living animal, 30 centimetres long, came from which species?

A whale shark egg 30 centimetres long is the largest on record, yet it was a rarity: the species normally keeps its eggs inside the mother until they hatch and gives birth to live young.

By a common rule of thumb, which feature of a hen predicts her eggshell colour?

The colour of her earlobes is only a rough guide: white-lobed breeds usually lay white eggs and red-lobed breeds brown, but it is the breed's genes, not the lobe, that set shell colour.

The Araucana, a chicken breed from Chile, is famous for laying eggs of what colour?

Blue shells come from a single dominant gene, which a 2013 study traced to a retrovirus lodged in the breed's DNA; crossed with brown-egg hens, the gene gives green or olive eggs.

Which mineral makes up almost all of a chicken eggshell?

Calcium carbonate is about 97 percent of the shell, which is why a day or two in vinegar strips it away and leaves a raw egg held together only by its membrane.

What are the spiral bands of tissue that hold the yolk in the centre of an egg white called?

Chalazae are two twisted cords of egg white that tie the yolk to the membrane at either end of the shell; the name is the Greek word for a hailstone or hard lump.

A very fresh chicken egg has a small air cell and earns which US quality rating?

Grade AA, the top USDA rating, goes to the freshest eggs, with a small air cell and a thick, firm white; the cell grows as an egg ages, so the grade slips with time in storage.

What is the most abundant protein in egg white?

Ovalbumin makes up about 54 percent of egg-white protein; when heated, it and its neighbours uncurl and bond into a mesh that traps the water, turning the clear white opaque and firm.

The yellow of an egg yolk comes from lutein and zeaxanthin, which belong to what class of pigments?

Lutein and zeaxanthin are carotenoids, the same family of yellow-orange pigments as the beta-carotene in carrots; hens cannot make them, so yolk colour tracks the pigments in their feed.

The greenish ring that forms around the yolk of an overcooked boiled egg is caused by which compound?

Iron(II) sulfide forms where sulfur driven off the overheated white meets the iron-rich yolk; plunging the eggs into cold water straight after boiling largely prevents it.

Why do American supermarkets refrigerate eggs when most European shops do not?

US eggs are washed, stripping the cuticle that seals the shell against bacteria, so they have to stay chilled from farm to store; many European countries bar washing and vaccinate hens instead.

A 2002 USDA analysis found roughly what proportion of eggs is contaminated with Salmonella?

One in 30,000: the 2002 USDA risk analysis estimated about 2.3 million contaminated eggs among the 69 billion produced a year, far rarer than the popular fear suggests.

As of 2023, which country lays over a third of the world's eggs, far more than any other?

China produced about 36 million tonnes of eggs in 2023, over a third of the world total; India, at about 8 million tonnes, has overtaken the United States for second place.

Which prolific white-egg chicken breed takes its name from the Italian port of Livorno?

Leghorn is the old English name for Livorno, the Tuscan port that shipped the first birds to America; small hens that can lay over 300 eggs a year, they became the stock behind commercial white-egg flocks.

Chickens, the source of most eggs eaten today, were first domesticated in which region?

Southeast Asia is home to the red junglefowl, the chicken's wild ancestor; a 2022 study places the first clear chickens in central Thailand about 3,500 years ago, drawn to villages by stored rice and millet.

Ancient Romans broke or pierced their empty eggshells straight after eating for what reason?

To guard against evil spells: Pliny the Elder wrote that everyone dreaded being bewitched, so the shells of eggs and snails were broken or pierced with the spoon as soon as they were emptied.

During Lent in medieval Western Europe, what was the Church's rule on eggs?

Forbidden, like meat and dairy: the fast barred flesh and everything that came from it, eggs, milk and cheese included, and that long gap is one root of giving eggs at Easter.

A century egg is cured in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, rice hulls and what?

Quicklime makes the coating strongly alkaline, and over weeks the alkali seeps through the shell, turning the white to dark translucent jelly and the yolk creamy grey-green.

Which Filipino street food is a fertilised duck egg, incubated for about 17 days, then boiled and eaten from the shell?

Balut is incubated well short of hatching, so the duck embryo is formed but still soft; diners crack the top of the shell and sip the broth before eating the rest.

Why is a Chinese tea egg also called a 'marble egg'?

Its cracked shell stains the white: the boiled egg is tapped all over, then simmered again in tea, soy sauce and spices, which seep in and leave dark veins; street vendors sell them from steaming pots.

Lemuel Benedict claimed he invented eggs Benedict at the Waldorf in 1894 while seeking a cure for what?

A hangover sent the Wall Street broker to the Waldorf, where he ordered buttered toast, crisp bacon, poached eggs and hollandaise; maître d' Oscar Tschirky later swapped in ham and an English muffin.

At Southern and Midwestern church suppers, deviled eggs go by which tamer adjective?

'Dressed eggs' spares churchgoers the word devil, which in the kitchen only means heavily seasoned: here, the mustard and pepper beaten into the yolk filling.

Which London department store claims to have invented the Scotch egg?

Fortnum & Mason, the Piccadilly grocer, claims the Scotch egg as its own invention; a rival account has it born in Whitby, Yorkshire, coated in fish paste rather than sausage meat.

The Denver omelette, also called a Western omelette, is traditionally filled with ham, onions and what?

Green bell peppers go in with diced ham and onion; slipped between two slices of bread, the same omelette becomes the Denver, or Western, sandwich.

Shakshouka, eggs poached in a spiced tomato and pepper sauce, is generally traced to which region?

The Maghreb, the north-west corner of Africa, is where most accounts place it; Jewish migrants from the region carried the dish to Israel, where it became a national favourite.

Which dessert hides ice cream under a shell of browned meringue?

Baked Alaska works because whipped egg white conducts heat poorly, so the ice cream stays frozen for the minute or two the meringue needs to brown; Delmonico's restaurant made it famous.

Which Italian pasta dish is made with raw beaten egg, cured pork and grated cheese?

Carbonara is tossed away from the flame, so the heat of the pasta alone thickens the egg and cheese into a creamy coating without scrambling it; the name comes from the Italian for charcoal.

A popular theory names mayonnaise after the port of Mahón, on which Mediterranean island?

Mahón is the capital of Menorca in the Balearics; the Duke of Richelieu's French troops took the port in 1756 during the Seven Years' War, which is when the sauce is thought to have been named.

The egg cream, a soda-fountain drink containing neither egg nor cream, is a speciality of which US city?

New York's egg cream is only milk, chocolate syrup and seltzer, stirred hard to raise a foamy head; it grew up in the Jewish candy stores of the Lower East Side and Brooklyn.

At which institution did the Eggnog Riot of Christmas 1826 break out, over a ban on alcohol in the eggnog?

West Point cadets, told their Christmas eggnog would be alcohol-free, smuggled in liquor and mixed their own; windows were smashed, a shot was fired, and a young Jefferson Davis was among those confined.

As of 2025, Kinder Surprise eggs, with a toy sealed inside, are illegal to import into which country?

The United States bars sweets with a toy sealed inside as a choking hazard, and border agents enforce it: in 2011 a Manitoba woman faced a $300 fine over one egg carried into Minnesota.

What is the soft white-and-yellow filling of a Cadbury Creme Egg made of?

Fondant, a creamy sugar paste, fills the chocolate shell in white with a blob of yellow, coloured that way to mimic the white and yolk of a soft-boiled egg.

Which Italian dessert is made by whisking egg yolks, sugar and sweet wine over gentle heat into a warm foam?

Zabaglione is whisked in a bowl set over simmering water, so the yolks thicken without scrambling, most often with Marsala; French cooks borrowed it as sabayon.

The very first Fabergé Imperial egg, presented in 1885, opened to reveal what inside?

A golden yolk holding a hen with ruby eyes sat inside the plain white shell, and the hen once hid a tiny crown, now lost; the gift pleased the tsar so much that Fabergé was made court supplier.

Banned from the Capitol grounds by Congress in 1876, Washington's Easter egg rollers moved two years later to which lawn?

The White House opened its grounds in 1878, when President Rutherford B. Hayes let in children turned away from the Capitol, whose turf Congress had passed a law to protect from the egg rollers.

Which author portrayed Humpty Dumpty as a talking egg in an 1871 children's book?

Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass has Alice watch an egg grow into Humpty Dumpty; the rhyme itself never calls him one, probably because it began as a riddle whose answer was 'an egg'.

Studies find that most egg-allergic children can tolerate egg prepared in which way?

Baked into cakes and muffins, egg was tolerated by most allergic children in supervised hospital trials, because long, fierce heat alters the proteins that trigger a reaction.

Which flightless bird lays bright green eggs that the male incubates alone?

The cassowary hen lays three to five bright green eggs and moves on; the male hatches them and then guards the striped chicks for nine months or more.

What is the temporary sharp bump on a hatchling's beak, used to break out of the shell?

The egg tooth is a hard point that chips through the shell from the inside and then falls off or is absorbed into the growing beak; hatchling reptiles carry one on the snout.

Besides the echidnas, which is the only living mammal that lays eggs?

The platypus lays one to three eggs in a burrow, then curls up and holds them against her belly with her tail until they hatch, and suckles the young for three to four months.

Which tangy spread for toast and scones is thickened by gently cooking eggs with sugar, butter and fruit juice?

Lemon curd is stirred constantly over gentle heat so the eggs thicken it without scrambling, which leaves it smooth enough to spread.

Which breakfast dish is made by soaking sliced bread in beaten egg and milk and then frying it?

French toast is known in France as pain perdu, 'lost bread', because soaking the slices in egg and milk was a thrifty way to rescue a loaf gone stale.

What is the name for the study, and once the popular hobby of collecting, of birds' eggs?

Oology was a respectable scientific pursuit in the 19th and early 20th centuries; taking wild birds' eggs is now illegal in many countries, and collecting survives only underground.

In sea turtles and crocodiles, what decides whether an egg hatches as a male or a female?

Nest temperature decides it: turtle eggs kept below about 28 °C hatch as males and those above 31 °C as females, so warming beaches threaten to skew whole generations.

What is the process of holding an egg to a light to check its air cell and quality called?

Candling is named for the candles first used as the light; held in front of a bright lamp, an egg shows the size of its air cell, its age and whether it is fertile.

Which painting medium, standard for panel pictures before oils took over, binds its pigments with egg yolk?

Tempera bound with egg yolk was the main medium for European panel painting until about 1500, when oil paint displaced it; the name comes from an Italian verb meaning to mix.

A very old egg does what when placed in a bowl of water?

A stale egg floats because its air cell has grown as water escaped through the shell's pores, leaving it less dense than water; a fresh egg sinks and lies flat.

Which pigment, the one that turns a fading bruise green, also tints some eggshells blue?

Biliverdin is the green bile pigment left when the body breaks down the heme in old red blood cells; a hen deposits it in the shell, where it gives blue and green eggs their colour.

Why do blood spots slip past egg inspectors more often in brown eggs than in white ones?

The darker shell hides them: inspectors shine a bright light through every egg to find flaws, and brown pigment lets less of it through, so more spotted eggs reach the shops.

Which fibrous protein is found in the clear membrane you peel from a boiled egg?

Collagen is among the fibrous proteins of the thin shell membrane, and the membranes are now powdered and sold as a supplement for sore joints.

True caviar is the salted roe, or eggs, of which family of fish?

Sturgeon roe alone is caviar in the strict sense, and the eggs of other fish count only as substitutes; overfishing for it has left the Caspian's beluga sturgeon critically endangered.

Most doses of which vaccine are grown in fertilised hens' eggs?

Most influenza vaccine is grown in fertilised hens' eggs, the virus multiplying in the fluid around the embryo, which is why flu shots long carried egg-allergy warnings.

Feeding hens which bloom's petals is a known way to deepen yolk colour?

Marigold petals are rich in lutein, the yellow-orange pigment that colours a yolk, so dried, ground petals are added to feed to deepen it; a hen fed no such pigments lays an almost colourless yolk.

A yolkless egg is most often produced by what kind of hen?

A pullet on her first attempt, a hen under a year old whose system is not yet in step, may wrap white and shell around no yolk at all; folklore called these cock eggs and blamed the rooster.

Which Japanese egg, slow-cooked in its shell, comes out with a white softer than its yolk?

Onsen tamago turns a boiled egg inside out: the yolk sets at a lower temperature than the white, so a long soak in hot-spring water held in between firms the yolk and leaves the white milky.

Holding eggs in their shells in warm water, hot enough to kill salmonella but too cool to cook them, is which process?

Pasteurisation, named after Louis Pasteur, holds a food at a set temperature for a set time to kill microbes; done in the shell, it leaves an egg raw enough for mayonnaise or mousse but much safer.

A 2025 study's ideal boiled egg shuttles every two minutes between boiling water and a bath of what?

Lukewarm water at 30 °C, swapped with boiling water for 32 minutes in all, holds the yolk near 67 °C so it turns creamy, while the white, which needs more heat, still sets.

Hens with a faulty FMO3 gene cannot break down a compound from their feed, so their eggs smell of what?

Fish: the compound is trimethylamine, the smell of rotting fish, which builds up in the yolk; the same gene fault causes 'fish odour syndrome' in people and fishy milk in cows.

A 'curate's egg', good only in parts, was made famous by an 1895 cartoon in which British humour magazine?

Punch showed a timid curate, handed a bad egg at his bishop's table, insisting that parts of it were excellent; the phrase now covers anything that is good only in places.

Which Chinese festival pastry traditionally hides a whole salted duck egg yolk at its centre?

Mooncakes, eaten at the Mid-Autumn moon festival, carry the yolk as a symbol of the full moon; brining turns a duck egg's yolk firm, round and orange-red, just right for the part.

Which juice is often added to pickled eggs to turn them red?

Beetroot turns the peeled eggs pink to purple as they steep in the spiced brine; 'red beet eggs' were devised by Pennsylvania's German-speaking Amish settlers and are still a picnic staple there.

Which American sponge cake is made with egg whites only, leaving out the yolks and the butter?

Angel food cake gets all its lift from whipped egg whites, with no yolks, butter or baking powder, which is why it bakes so pale and airy; a little cream of tartar steadies the foam.

Which emulsifier in egg yolk, named from the Greek for yolk, lets oil and water blend in mayonnaise?

Lecithin molecules cling to fat at one end and water at the other, so they hold a mayonnaise's oil droplets in suspension; it makes up about 9 percent of a yolk.

Which insecticide contaminated millions of European eggs pulled from sale in 2017?

Fipronil, banned in the EU for animals raised for food, had been mixed into a treatment used against parasites on Dutch poultry farms; millions of eggs were withdrawn once it was found in them.

Which stamp do British eggs from salmonella-vaccinated hens carry?

The lion marks eggs from a scheme, launched in 1998, whose code requires every hen to be vaccinated against salmonella; the Food Standards Agency has since declared Lion eggs safe for pregnant women and babies.

A 'nest egg' of savings is named after an egg left in a hen's nest to do what?

Encourage more laying: a real or artificial egg left in the nest persuades a hen to go on laying there, and the name passed to a sum of money put by as a reserve.

A New England TV jingle proclaimed brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are what?

The New England Brown Egg Council's jingle ran 'brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh'; the region's Rhode Island Reds lay brown eggs while most of the US buys white.

Which penguin's male balances a single egg on his feet through the Antarctic winter, going without food for two months?

The emperor penguin is the only penguin that breeds in the Antarctic winter: the female lays and returns to the sea to feed, while the males huddle together for warmth with the eggs on their feet.

What does an EU egg code beginning with 0 signify?

Organic production gets the 0; the first digit stamped on each egg then runs 1 for free range, 2 for barn and 3 for cage, so a shopper can read the farming method straight off the shell.

Which technology lets egg producers avoid culling male chicks by identifying sex before hatching?

In-ovo sexing tests the embryo inside the egg, by hormone sampling or imaging, so male eggs are removed before hatching; Germany's 2022 ban on routine chick culling drove its adoption.

For which Iranian festival do families decorate eggs to set on the holiday table as symbols of new life?

Nowruz, the New Year at the spring equinox, is marked with a table of symbolic foods and objects; the painted eggs on it stand for fertility, and some families set out one for each member.

In Barcelona, a hollow eggshell dancing on a fountain jet is a tradition of which feast?

Corpus Christi: the egg is blown empty and its hole sealed with wax, and as it bobs on the fountain jet in Barcelona Cathedral's cloister it is popularly read as the host, the body of Christ.

The 60,000-year-old engraved eggshells from South Africa's Diepkloof Rock Shelter had served hunter-gatherers as what?

Water containers: hunter-gatherers used the shells as flasks, and the hatched bands engraved on them may have signalled which person or group each one belonged to.

Which Salamanca speciality, stuffed with pork, chorizo and hard-boiled eggs, is carried to countryside picnics after Easter?

Hornazo: by tradition, the Lunes de Aguas picnic began with students rowing out to fetch the women sent across the Tormes for Lent, then feasting with them on the riverbank.

In Poland's Święconka tradition, what do families carry to church on Holy Saturday to be blessed?

A basket of food: lined with white linen and sprigs of boxwood, it holds samples of the Easter meal, and the blessing has separate prayers for the meats, the eggs and the breads.

Greek women traditionally dye Easter eggs red on Holy Thursday using what?

Onion skins: they stain the shells red for the blood of Christ, and the eggs are made on the same day as tsoureki, the braided Easter loaf they are sometimes set into.

In 1290, King Edward I's household bought 450 Easter eggs to be coloured or covered in what?

Gold leaf: the royal accounts record eighteen pence spent on 450 Pace-eggs, which were coloured or gilded and handed out to members of the king's household.

Ukrainian pysanky take their name from a verb meaning what?

To write: the name comes from the verb pysaty, because the patterns are written on the shell in hot beeswax before each dye bath, and the wax is removed at the end to reveal them.

In Germany, decorated public wells at Easter are known as what?

Osterbrunnen: the custom arose on the dry plateau of Franconian Switzerland, where stored water was precious, and one in Bieberbach made Guinness World Records with 11,108 hand-painted eggshells.

What did Pennsylvania German children make so the Easter hare would leave them coloured eggs?

A nest in a cap or bonnet: only well-behaved children were said to find eggs there from the 'Oschter Haws', the egg-laying hare that softened over time into the Easter Bunny.

In South Louisiana, which name for Easter egg tapping is said to echo the sound of the shells meeting?

Pocking eggs: the name is said to play on Pâques, French for Easter, and on the poc of shell meeting shell, and a player whose egg cracks must forfeit it to the winner.

In Australia, chocolate versions of which threatened marsupial are sold at Easter in place of bunnies?

Bilby: rabbits are an introduced pest that helped push the long-eared marsupial out of its burrows, so conservationists promoted an Easter Bilby, and some makers give part of their chocolate sales to its protection.

In January 2019, a stock photo of a plain hen's egg became the most-liked post on which platform?

Instagram: the account world_record_egg set out to beat Kylie Jenner's 18 million likes and did it in ten days, and the egg later 'cracked' in an advert urging people under pressure to talk to someone.

What are the confetti-filled eggshells cracked over heads at Mexican celebrations called?

Cascarones: they have long been a way to flirt, with girls in 1820s California cracking them over bachelors and New Mexico men breaking one over a lady's head to ask her to dance.

The giant pysanka sculpture in Vegreville honours Ukrainian settlers in which Canadian province?

Alberta: the aluminium egg was dedicated in 1975 for the centenary of the Mounties' arrival in the province, and its bronze, gold and silver pattern tells the story of the area's Ukrainian settlers.

In Eastern legend, whose basket of eggs turned red on seeing the risen Christ?

Mary Magdalene: in one telling the eggs in her basket turned red at the tomb; in another, Tiberius Caesar scoffed that Christ had no more risen than an egg could turn red, and the one in her hand did.

On the Passover seder plate, the hard-boiled egg represents what?

Festival sacrifice: the roasted egg stands in for the offering once brought to the Temple, and because eggs are the first food served to Jewish mourners it also grieves the Temple's loss.

Eggs Florentine swaps the ham of eggs Benedict for which ingredient?

Spinach: French kitchens call a dish served on spinach 'à la florentine', a label long credited to Catherine de' Medici's Florentine cooks, though food historians now call that story a myth.

How did the scrap dealer who nearly had the lost Third Imperial Fabergé Egg melted learn what he owned?

A web search: he had bought the gold egg at a market to sell for melting, but no buyer would meet his price, so one night he looked up the name on its watch and found a news story about the missing egg.

In which 2004 heist film do rival thieves compete to steal a Fabergé Coronation Egg from a museum?

Ocean's Twelve: master thief François Toulour dares Danny Ocean's crew to take the egg before he does, and the crew plans to swap it for a hologram.

Which Russian museum holds ten Fabergé Imperial eggs, more than any other collection?

The Kremlin Armoury: its ten are eggs that were never sold, packed off to Moscow after the 1917 revolution and left in crates in its storerooms while others went abroad.

Which Soviet leader's government sold Fabergé Imperial eggs abroad in the early 1930s to raise Western currency?

Joseph Stalin: ten of the eggs went to the American businessman Armand Hammer, who took them to America and sold his Russian treasures through department stores in the Depression.

After buying nine Fabergé Imperial eggs from the Forbes family in 2004, Viktor Vekselberg opened a museum for them in which city?

Saint Petersburg: he bought the collection just before it went to auction so the eggs would return to Russia, and since 2013 they have been shown in the Shuvalov Palace, in the city where Fabergé made them.

Alma Pihl designed Fabergé's Winter Egg, sold for a record £22.9 million in 2025, after seeing what?

Frost on a window: Pihl first turned the hoarfrost on her workshop panes into snowflake jewels for the oil magnate Emanuel Nobel, then into the rock-crystal egg Nicholas II gave his mother in 1913.

Which 1983 James Bond film begins its plot with a dying agent delivering a forged Fabergé egg?

Octopussy: agent 009 dies clutching the forgery, and at a Sotheby's sale Bond swaps it for the real egg, then bids the villain up so that he overpays for the fake.

By legend, which leader so enjoyed an omelette near Bessières, France, that he ordered a giant one for his army?

Napoleon: the town keeps the tale alive every Easter Monday, when its omelette brotherhood cracks some 15,000 eggs into a giant pan and hands out the result free.

The puffy omelette de la mère Poulard, cooked over an open fire, comes from where?

Mont-Saint-Michel: Annette Poulard found that visitors came and went with the tide, so she whipped up giant omelettes over a wood fire to feed them fast and keep them at her inn.

Alexandre Dumas's 'Arabian omelette' recipe called for the egg of which bird?

Dumas's Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine describes an Arabian omelette made from a single ostrich egg, served with a spicy tomato and pepper sauce he credited to the Bey's cook.

Which Japanese omelette wraps a ketchup-seasoned filling and wears a ketchup topping?

Omurice: in one origin story, an Osaka restaurateur took pity in 1925 on a regular with a bad stomach who always ordered omelette and plain rice, and wrapped ketchup rice in a thin omelette for him.

The omelette Arnold Bennett was created at which London hotel's grill?

The Savoy: chef Jean Baptiste Virlogeux made the smoked-haddock omelette for the novelist in 1929, while he was staying there to research Imperial Palace, his novel set in a grand hotel.

Which seafood goes into California's hangtown fry, the Gold Rush scramble of eggs and bacon?

Oysters: in the best-known story a prospector who had just struck gold demanded the priciest meal in the house, and eggs, bacon and oysters were the costliest things the cook had.

Which Thai pantry staple is whisked into the eggs of a khai jiao, the puffy omelette fried in deep hot oil?

Fish sauce: the eggs are beaten with it until frothy, then fried in plenty of very hot oil so the omelette puffs up with crisp edges, and it is served over steamed rice.

The frittata di maccheroni, an omelette made with pasta, is a traditional dish of which Italian city?

Naples: cooks there bound leftover pasta with egg so that nothing was thrown away in lean times.

Which egg dish takes its name from a French verb meaning 'to puff up'?

Soufflé: the name is the past participle of souffler, and the puff comes from beaten egg whites folded into the base, which is why a risen one sinks again soon after it leaves the oven.

Besides eggs and cream, which ingredient defines a classic quiche Lorraine?

Smoked bacon: the traditional filling is only eggs, cream and lardons, and Elizabeth David dismissed versions with cheese as not the true quiche Lorraine.

On American Chinese menus, egg drop soup is also literally translated as what?

'Egg flower soup' translates the Chinese dan hua tang, describing the wisps the beaten egg makes in the broth; American versions are often thickened with cornstarch.

Which Greek chicken-and-rice soup is finished with a slowly stirred egg mixture?

Avgolemono, 'egg-lemon': eggs beaten with lemon juice thicken the broth, a trick traced to agristada, the dairy-free sauce that Sephardic cooks in Spain devised to serve with meat.

Guangzhou pastry chefs modelled the Cantonese daahn taat on which English baked good?

Custard tart: Guangzhou's Western-style department stores were competing for customers in the early 1900s, so their pastry chefs reworked the English tart and sold it as a 'Weekly Special'.

Which fast-food chain bought the recipe for Macau's Portuguese egg tarts from baker Margaret Wong?

KFC: Wong, the former wife of Lord Stow's Bakery founder Andrew Stow, ran a rival café, and her deal put Macau's Portuguese-British hybrid tart on the chain's menus across Asia.

Which Puerto Rican Christmas drink, often called the island's eggnog, blends rum with coconut milk?

Coquito: it is a homemade tradition whose recipes families guard jealously, and makers still argue over whether 'Puerto Rican eggnog' should contain any egg at all.

Which hot eggnog cocktail takes its name from Pierce Egan's 1821 novel Life in London?

Tom and Jerry: Egan's heroes were Jerry Hawthorn and his friend Corinthian Tom, and the drink is sometimes credited to Egan himself as publicity for the book and its hit stage version.

Which Dutch liqueur of egg yolks, sugar and brandy is essentially a bottled eggnog?

Advocaat: dictionaries derive the name from advocatenborrel, a drink to oil a lawyer's throat, though another story traces it to an avocado drink the Dutch met in their colonies in the Americas.

What was credited with killing the salmonella a Rockefeller University lab added to its aged eggnog in 2010?

The rum and bourbon: the bacteria were gone within three weeks, and the lab's microbiologists had already drunk the same recipe at their December party for five decades, mixing it at Thanksgiving to age.

In which desert did a 1923 American expedition find the first eggs to be recognised as a dinosaur's?

The Gobi: the eggs were credited to Protoceratops, and a dinosaur found lying on a clutch was named Oviraptor, egg thief, but finds in the 1990s showed it had been brooding eggs of its own.

Which bird is known for laying its eggs in other birds' nests and leaving the hosts to raise its chicks?

Cuckoo: the newly hatched chick heaves the hosts' own eggs out of the nest, then keeps its foster parents feeding it with a call that mimics a whole nest of hungry chicks.

Which metal bowl has been used in France since the 18th century to stabilise egg-white foams?

Copper: French cooks have whisked whites in copper bowls since the 1700s, because traces of the metal stabilise the foam and make it harder to overbeat.

Months of eating raw egg whites every day can leave a person short of which vitamin?

Biotin: raw whites contain avidin, a protein that grips the vitamin so tightly the gut cannot absorb it, whereas heat breaks avidin's hold.

Which photographs, the most common kind for some forty years from the 1850s, were made on paper coated with egg white?

Albumen prints: the egg white sealed the paper and gave a smooth, glossy surface for the light-sensitive silver salts, and the result was sharper than the salted paper print it replaced.

The main fatty acid in an egg yolk is also the chief one in which kitchen oil?

Olive oil: both are rich in oleic acid, which makes up about 70 percent of olive oil and takes its name from oleum, the Latin word for oil.

Which antibody transfers from hen to yolk to protect the embryo?

IgY, the avian counterpart of mammalian IgG, passes from the hen's blood into the yolk, giving embryo and hatchling passive immunity; it is harvested commercially from eggs for antibodies.

Feeding hens large amounts of which vegetable tends to produce red or deep orange yolks?

Capsicum peppers: they are rich in the red pigment capsanthin, which passes into the yolk, and paprika extract is added to poultry feed for exactly that reason.

What is the pale spot on a yolk's surface that carries the hen's genetic material called?

Germinal disc: also called the blastodisc, this speck of cytoplasm sitting on top of the yolk is the only part that can become a chick, while the rest of the yolk is its food supply.

Which 1990s toy has a name that blends the Japanese words for 'egg' and 'watch'?

Tamagotchi: Bandai's egg-shaped toy holds a digital pet that hatches on screen, and its owner has to keep feeding and cleaning up after it through each stage of its life.

Scotch woodcock is scrambled eggs served on toast spread with what?

Gentleman's Relish, the anchovy paste Patum Peperium, is spread on the toast under the soft scrambled eggs; despite the name no bird is involved, as with Welsh rabbit.

Venezuelan and Colombian scrambled eggs with tomato and onion are called huevos pericos, named after which bird?

Parakeet: the red tomato, green scallion and yellow egg are said to recall the bird's bright plumage, and the scramble is a favourite filling for arepas.

In a 16th-century tale, which explorer made an egg stand on end by tapping it flat on the table?

Christopher Columbus: in Benzoni's 1565 telling he did it to show that any feat looks easy once done, though Vasari had told the same trick of the architect Brunelleschi fifteen years earlier.

In Pennsylvania, an over-easy fried egg is commonly given what name?

Dippy egg: the Pennsylvania name comes from dipping toast into the runny yolk, which is the whole point of leaving it unbroken.

The Dutch fried-egg dish uitsmijter shares its name with which job?

Uitsmijter means 'bouncer', literally 'out-thrower', supposedly as the last dish served before closing time; it is fried eggs on buttered bread with ham and cheese, a common Dutch lunch.

In Thailand a fried egg is called khai dao, which literally means what?

Star egg: adding the words khai dao after a dish's name on a Thai menu orders it with a fried egg on top, as with basil pork over rice.

A Brazilian steak topped with fried eggs is called bife a cavalo, which literally means steak how?

On horseback: the fried eggs are pictured as riders sitting on the steak, an idea that reached Brazil with the Portuguese and echoes the French bifteck à cheval.

Franchisee Herb Peterson invented a hand-held version of eggs Benedict in 1972 for which fast-food chain?

McDonald's: Peterson shaped the egg in a Teflon ring to match the muffin and used a slice of cheese where the classic has hollandaise, and his Egg McMuffin opened up the breakfast trade for the chain.

Which Roman cookbook, attributed to Apicius, includes recipes that use boiled eggs?

De re coquinaria: one of its recipes dresses cardoons with briny broth, oil and chopped hard-boiled eggs, much as a cook today might reach for a vinaigrette.

Chemists who found a way to partially 'un-boil' an egg won which tongue-in-cheek award in 2015?

The Ig Nobel Prize: the chemistry award went to an American and Australian team for a recipe that pulls the clumped proteins of cooked egg white apart so that they can fold up again.

Which Danish company invented the machine-made 'long egg' for even slices?

Danæg of Denmark introduced the machine in 1974, setting a tube of yolk inside a tube of white so every slice has a yolk; Kenko Mayonnaise makes long eggs in Japan.

Which chef published a 'perfect boiled egg' recipe after 'relentless trials'?

Heston Blumenthal's method puts eggs in cold water barely covering them, brings it to the boil, takes the pan off the heat and leaves the eggs six minutes for a set white and runny yolk.

In Britain and Australia, toast strips served with a soft-boiled egg are called what?

Soldiers: the strips line up like troops on parade, and the phrase may have been coined or spread by 1965 television adverts for eggs starring the comedian Tony Hancock.

Which Sephardic eggs are cooked slowly overnight in the Sabbath stew until their whites turn brown?

Haminados: cooking is forbidden on the Sabbath itself, so the stew goes on the heat on Friday before it begins, and the eggs tucked into the pot braise all night.

Which Japanese company makes kimipuchi, a yolk product that stays soft when microwaved?

Kewpie: Japan's best-known mayonnaise maker sells the frozen yolk-like product to caterers, and warming it in a microwave turns it into a runny sauce instead of setting it hard.

In which 1967 film does Paul Newman's prisoner win a bet by eating 50 hard-boiled eggs in an hour?

Cool Hand Luke: Dragline, the top convict, stakes every cent in camp on Luke, who gets the last egg down as the hour runs out, and George Kennedy won an Oscar for the role.

Which Turkish dish pairs poached eggs with garlic yogurt and red-pepper butter?

Çılbır: it is said to have been served in the Topkapı Palace kitchens of the Ottoman sultans as far back as the 15th century, and it is eaten by dunking warm bread into the yolk and yogurt.

Which Colombian breakfast poaches eggs in a scallion and coriander milk broth?

Changua: the broth is poured over a piece of stale bread called calado, which softens in the bowl, and Bogotá has also adopted the breakfast soup as a late-night snack.

Adding a splash of which pantry staple to poaching water speeds an egg's setting and limits white dispersal?

Vinegar's acidity accelerates poaching; straining the egg first also removes the thin white that forms foam.

Japanese tamagoyaki is traditionally cooked in a pan of what shape, called a makiyakinabe?

Rectangular: the straight sides keep the omelette the same width along its whole length as each thin layer is rolled up, which gives the finished roll its neat bar shape.

A 1960s Japanese saying ranked tamagoyaki among children's three great loves, with a baseball team and a champion of which sport?

Sumo: the saying ran 'Kyojin, Taiho, tamagoyaki', setting the rolled omelette beside the Yomiuri Giants and the grand champion Taiho, and a slice is still thought essential in a boxed lunch.

Which Korean dish steams beaten egg in an earthenware pot until it puffs?

Gyeran-jjim: the ttukbaegi pot holds its heat so well that the custardy egg reaches the table still bubbling, which is how it is served as a side dish at Korean barbecue restaurants.

Which 1896 cookbook contains one of the earliest printed recipes for an egg salad sandwich?

The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book: Fannie Farmer has the cook chop the whites, press the yolks through a strainer and bind the two with mayonnaise between thin slices of buttered bread.

In 19th-century Mexican cookbooks, huevos rancheros were sunny-side-up eggs in what?

Huevos rancheros are fried eggs bathed in red or green chile sauce on tortillas; city cookbooks added the 'rancheros' label, pointing to the hacienda cowherds who cooked eggs in salsa.