. Not all eggs are equal, of course, but it's time to buy well – Clarence Court, Happy Eggs and St Ewe are all now widely available – and treat the glorious, nutritious, versatile little packages with the respect they deserve. A blank canvas The cliché is spot on: if you've got eggs, you've got a meal. Relatively neutral in flavour, they pair with virtually any ingredient you can forage from the back of your fridge, from chilli sauce to wilted veg. Leftovers from last night's supper? Pop an egg on it and you have lunch. Eggs also offer sweet possibilities: custard, of course, but also French toast (stale bread dipped in egg, fried and sprinkled with sugar). Lift off Straight from the shell, egg whites are gloopy and slimy, but add air by whisking and they transform into something miraculous. Here's the science bit: the protein in eggs is made up of thousands of molecules called amino aci){kind=link}
From silky custards to slap-up breakfasts, we’d be nowhere without the kitchen’s multi-purpose hero ingredient
Sorry to break the news but, this weekend, we must contemplate – in all its sad pointlessness – a full English breakfast without the vital sidekick: eggs.
That’s the prospect for the foreseeable as egg shortages hit retailers and hospitality thanks to a perfect storm of hens lost to bird flu and producers ceasing production due to spiralling costs. With shelves near empty, supermarkets are rationing supplies and Wetherspoons has admitted, bleakly, to offering alternatives on its breakfast menu.
Sadly, normal service won’t necessarily resume soon. “While we expect availability to return to normal levels when cost pressures ease, we don’t know when this will be,” says Andrew Joret, Chairman of the British Egg Industry Council. So, as we consider eggless soldiers and egg cups gathering dust, is it time to stop taking these kitchen staples for granted?
It certainly seems we can’t get enough of them. Just think about this cracker of a statistic: in the UK we devour 37 million eggs every day, or a mind-scrambling 13.5 billion per year (yes, it’s true, that’s about 202 per day). Not all eggs are equal, of course, but it’s time to buy well – Clarence Court, Happy Eggs and St Ewe are all now widely available – and treat the glorious, nutritious, versatile little packages with the respect they deserve.