Every once in a while we have the pleasure of finding ½ dozen eggs in our CSA bags. And for those who want delicious local eggs on a more regular schedule, Sandhill Farm is now able to offer eggs from Two Cedars Farm on a weekly subscription plan.
CSA members tend to go crazy for these eggs. The color, texture and flavor are completely different from grocery store eggs. And those who have done some reading on industrialized food production know that even “organic” “cage free” eggs aren’t all that they’re cracked up :) to be. I’d also like to mention that I highly recommend Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals if you’re exploring issues of personal food choices, and specifically, the egg issue.
The fresh eggs I most recently received in my CSA bag were absolutely gorgeous - so gorgeous in fact that I insisted upon making the “Egg in a Hole” AKA “Bird’s Nest” of my childhood for dinner one night last week. I just wanted to taste them straight up with some toast and a little salt and pepper.
There was no blood in sight in my batch, but I heard that Sherry found bloodspots in a few of her eggs, and that got us talking about kashrut…
Commercial eggs do not come from fertile hens, so for most of us today, there’s no need for concern about bloodspots. However, the fresh eggs we sometimes receive from local farms do come from fertile hens. In these fertile eggs, there is a chance of bloodspots, which may signify the beginning of a new embryo, making the egg unkosher. So, for kashrut purposes, the rule is to crack one egg at a time so that you may discard an entire egg if it has a bloodspot.
Yes, it may feel wasteful, and yes, it may be quite disappointing, but I think there’s something rather special about the “old world” practice of having to check each egg and discard those with bloodspots. In an age when more and more grocery store products are marked kosher, most of us don’t have to give all that much consideration to the food we bring into our homes. And for me, there’s something nostalgic and meaningful about the notion of checking each egg the way my Great Grandma Rose did. But that’s just me – what do you think?
Reflections on the Community Supported Agriculture Project of Congregation B'nai Israel
I know this post was from some time ago so I hope that my comment does not come too late.
ReplyDeleteIt is a very common misconception that a blood-spot indicates the beginning of a new embryo. That is very often not the case.
Blood-spots often form without the presence of a rooster where there is no possibility of fertility. This is because these blood spots are caused by the rupture of a blood vessel during the formation of the egg - not the formation of an embryo.
The reason we don't see these in our grocery store eggs is because most modern commercial companies candle the eggs and discard any eggs found to contain blood-spots before distribution.
Even then - some eggs do make it to grocery shelves that have small blood-spots - Especially with brown or darker shelled eggs which are harder to see into.
I raise chickens and have incubated my own eggs. I can assure you that if there was a baby chicken developing in the egg you would be very sure. Very early on the embryo starts forming a fine network of veins. A blood or even a meat-spot is very common in young and older birds who are having adjustments to their reproductive tract.
Even if an egg is fertile it needs to be incubated in order to start the process of forming the embryo. In nature, chickens lay sometimes up to 14 eggs before "setting" the eggs. Hens lay at the rate of about one egg per day. So, at that rate it would be two weeks before the eggs ever started developing.
Therefore - I am not saying it is impossible... but it is very unlikely that these blood-spots indicate developing life and are rather indications of very fresh eggs.
I'm certainly not rallying for eating an egg that contains a blood-spot. Kashrut must be observed. However, from keeping my own chickens I can tell you that sometimes we don't always collect eggs daily. Sometimes during this time a hen decides to "set" on a collection of a few eggs (that might not all be hers or all laid at the same time) and after a few days we do candle the eggs to ensure that none of them have started developing.
I'm sure that before the modern bulb was developed to help this process along it was very difficult to determine if eggs a broody hen was found sitting on were developing or not.
Therefore cracking an egg at a time would have been prudent and it remains a warm tradition practiced by many.