Easter is egg time. But why do we eat eggs?
The egg is a symbol of life and of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Day. The fact that Easter has become the great egg holiday is partly due to the fact that it was forbidden to eat eggs during the 40-day fast before Easter. Partly because it was starting to get light again in our latitudes, a signal to the chickens that it was time to start laying eggs again after the winter darkness.
Suddenly there were plenty of eggs and you could load your body with much-needed vitamins and proteins. During Easter week we eat around 2,000 tons of eggs, twice as much as normal. During Easter Eve alone, it is estimated that 6 million eggs are consumed per hour!
It is no longer so easy to choose what kind of eggs to buy for Easter. There are a multitude of different varieties nowadays. They are organic, brown or white, washed or unwashed, from free-range hens indoors or outdoors, etc. Some of the new inventive egg names are downright comical and feel undeniably contrived. Why are they called country eggs? It goes without saying that they are produced outside the city limits. There are no “city eggs”. Another example is farm eggs. As far as I know, there are no “villa eggs”. The latest I have noticed is kitchen eggs. If there are kitchen eggs, you can imagine that there may also be “bedroom eggs”. And the stupidest of them all – Fresh eggs. It would be strange if they were immune to aging after 2 weeks in the store.
In my childhood, my mother painted the eggs (I guess they still do that) as a face. As you can see above, the development has progressed and now there are glamorous egg paintings. If you put in that much work, they are best suited as a decoration on the Easter table or elsewhere.
Truly luxurious eggs were made by goldsmith and jeweler Karl Fabergé for the last Tsar family of Russia. The Imperial Fabergé eggs are some of the most stunning, precious and lavish antiques in existence.
Every year, Emperor Alexander had an egg made for his wife. They became more luxurious and expensive over the years.
The 43rd egg was only found a few years ago and it is a truly special story. An American scrap dealer discovered a gold egg adorned with precious stones at an antique market. But after paying 85,000 kronor, he couldn’t sell it. The price he had calculated was based on the value of the gold and precious stones, but every potential buyer thought he was asking too much. So he went home and googled it. He searched for the words “egg” and “Vacheron Constantin”, the name etched into a gold watch that folds out of the egg. The scrap dealer boarded a flight to London to have the egg appraised. It was found to be a genuine Fabergé egg with a value of 210 million. Talk about luck!
Now back to the edible eggs again.
Decorating isn’t as demanding at Easter, and that’s nice. A few flowers, feathers, and maybe an Easter bunny in a window are all you need. It’s on the Easter table that you can let your creativity flow.
Cute arrangements with chickens and mice. Not too difficult to achieve.
I wish you a Happy and peaceful Easter!
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