Buying eggs

 Sometimes the metric system rises up and grabs you by surprise.  Here in the EU eggs are metric.  Not that the eggs are any different in themselves, but when you go buy a dozen eggs there are only 10 eggs in the carton.  They invented the baker's dozen over here, but now they are making up for it with a vengeance!

We actually noticed this phenomenon pretty quickly after we arrived here, but I recently learned another interesting egg fact.  In Europe, it is illegal for commercial egg producers to wash the eggs.

Back in the olden days when I was an actual, practicing biologist, I was a certified egg inspector.  We would go into stores, check with the manager, then retire to his cold storage room and candle several dozen of his eggs to see if there were any bad eggs in there.  Usually there were not, except down in Mexicali - but that is another story.  One of the things we down-graded on was any sign of a feather or little poopie on any eggs.  You see, in the USA it is illegal for commercial egg producers NOT to wash their eggs.  In the USA, they wash off any feathers, poopies, and the protective wax coating naturally found on fresh eggs.  Consequently, in the USA, fresh eggs are always found in cold storage.  They have a tendency to spoil if left at room temperature.

But in Europe we open our egg carton and regularly find a feather or two, a little poopie here and there, and nice fresh eggs with their natural waxy layer intact.  They don't bother to refrigerate eggs, and the eggs don't spoil if you leave them on the kitchen counter for a week or three, because the waxy layer protects them from infection.  So, both approaches work.  I prefer the EU system, personally.

Also, the eggs are quite frequently fertilized here, another thing we would downgrade them for in the USA.    It doesn't make any real difference, but there is usually a tiny little red spot inside a fertilized egg, and I used to downgrade eggs for them.  Now I enjoy eating them.

So, that's about all for now.  We are under quarantine again.  We actually have our visas now, but they still reside in Ljubljana at the immigration office and we aren't allowed to go there, yet.  So I am back to my branch and Auditing duties.