The Eggs of Death

Debbie and I were watching some weirdo Swedish cooking show on PBS. If you’ve ever seen one of these, you know the genre. They set up an outdoor kitchen and cook lots of strange seafood and root vegetables.

In this show the lovely blond host was cooking an egg dish. She beats the eggs up, adds a little salt, and then grabs a spoon and tastes them, “needs more salt!” Debbie and I said at the same moment, “did she just taste raw eggs???”

Which got me to thinking. When did raw eggs become poison here?

That little episode was a harsh and unfortunately accurate condemnation of our culture and agriculture. We’re afraid out of all proportion of the wrong things, and we we’ve built an agri-industrial complex that values economic efficiency above all. Salmonella in the eggs? Just wash them, refrigerate them, wash them again, and never, never, ever, eat them raw.

We’ve lost our way, but the current popularity of local food gives me hope that we’re turning in the right direction.