one of my first years in AU, i decided i wanted to dye eggs for easter. run out to the shop, grab that little box of dye, some eggs, some vinegar and voila! pretty easter eggs.
but no.
in one of those classic expat moments, none of this was easy. first i found it hard to find the dye. ok, fine, i can get food colouring and make due. i had no idea it would be so hard to find the eggs. i don’t eat eggs that frequently so i think it was the first time i realised that all the eggs in the grocery store were brown, not white. i ended up having to open a bunch of egg cartons to find the palest browns i could. it just wasn’t the same… the brown came thru in the dying process and i have never tried it again.
so i found this article about brown eggs quite interesting.
turns out brown hens, which lay brown eggs, are more efficient than white hens that lay white eggs. due to efficiency’s sake, egg producers started using brown hens in the 1970s and today it’s very hard to find a white one. the australian egg corporation estimates less than 3% of the eggs laid in the entire country are white. apparently you have to go to a specialty place (one named in sydney but not near me) and they claim there’s demand during easter but then no demand the rest of the year (huh? people say no to the white egg? really?)
the article is about the hunt for the white eggs by the greek community who dye the eggs. no mention of the american expat community or how much fun the aussie kids are missing out on. happy easter all!
(the pix below are some eggs i bought at the grocery store a few weeks ago. the company’s logo has a smiley face but how cool that they’ve extended that onto all the eggs in the box!)
