Preserving Eggs Without Refrigeration

There was no refrigerator, and the eggs had to be kept until

winter, when the hens stopped laying, but people still wanted to eat.

And our ancestors found a way to keep an egg fresh for half

a year. Without refrigeration, without chemicals. Just

water and lime.

They mixed slaked lime with water. It turned white like

milk. They let it settle, and on top,

clear limewater remained. Into it,

they carefully lowered fresh eggs. Only fresh ones.

You can’t save an old one anymore. And only unwashed ones,

because the shell has a natural protection that must not be rubbed off.

Then came chemistry, which they didn’t know about, but

still used. The limewater

reacted with the air and settled on the shell in a thin

film. This film sealed thousands of

tiny pores in the shell, and the egg

stopped breathing outward. Moisture could not escape,

and air and bacteria could not get inside.

Time almost stopped for it.

A crock of eggs was kept in a cold cellar or

pantry and taken out little by little at Christmas, during

the holidays, in the dead of winter, when fresh eggs were hard

to find. They stayed good for half

a year. The yolk remained whole, the white

thick, almost as if it had just come from the hen.

Today, we open the refrigerator and don’t think about it.

But once, one jar of limewater saved a family

for the whole winter. Did you know this method? Let us know.