#TeaTimeTuesday. Why Traditional recipes were so important to health and how we can restore a connection to our food, the land and each other. Balance. Rhythm. Calm.
In my Ukrainian culture, the decorated egg is often displayed and created. Pysanka, a singly decorated egg, is a Ukrainian Easter egg, decorated with traditional Ukrainian folk designs using a wax-resist method. The word pysanka comes from the verb pysaty, "to write" or "to inscribe", as the designs are not painted on, but written (inscribed) with beeswax.
However, have you ever considered what the egg represents in cultures, especially during Spring?
In early spring, the days are becoming longer and warmer, the moon was often called Seed Moon or Egg Moon. Eggs, like seeds are symbolic of hope and a future that is fertile, they are an ancient icon of spring, rebirth, and renewal.
Farms that allow chickens, ducks, or geese to graze naturally will begin to see the hens producing more eggs at this time of year as they respond to the longer days. It is part of their natural cycle.
While wild eggs provided a reliable and important source of nutrition for hunter-gatherer societies and small agrarian communities, populations grew wild eggs were often over harvested. Over the course of the past five thousand years, chickens have become an essential part of agricultural systems in tall temperate areas throughout the world. They provide families to this day with eggs and meat to sustain them throughout the year.
I love to eat eggs because they are a culinary expression of cultures across the globe. While we tend to think of eggs as breakfast food, in most of the world they are lunch and dinner fare. Hard-cooked eggs are used in countless ways other than the familiar egg salad or deviled eggs.
Eggs have provided mankind with high-quality protein and fat-soluble vitamins for millennia. Properly produced eggs are rich in almost every nutrient we have yet discovered, especially fat-soluble vitamins A and D. They play a vital role in development of fatty acids (EPA, DHA) which help our nervous system. Brain food? Yes they are. In the best quality eggs you can find, properly raised farm eggs where the chickens can eat bugs, grass, grain and see sunlight, the omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids exist in an almost one to one ratio. These fatty acids are necessary for the development of the brain.
For those who balk at paying more for eggs than used to, remember that truly free-range eggs from outdoor chickens require a more expensive and labor-intensive production process than do the factory-farmed eggs in the supermarket. Even at the high-end price of six dollars a dozen, eggs at fifty cents apiece are still affordable. A two -egg breakfast costs only a dollar, and you know that your egg contains all the life-giving nutrient density it was meant to have.
Lets source out those great egg-farmers! I will begin to create a list in the section: Home On The Range right here on the website. Keep checking. Send me your favorite place to find farm eggs.
Egg Drop Soup
3 cups or so homemade chicken broth or you can pick some up at Messigner Meats or Purearth in Red Deer.
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon fish sauce, or to taste.
1 teaspoon soy sauce, or to taste.
1 egg
2-3 scallions or green onions, sliced thinly
Bring the chicken broth to a boil in a pot. Season with 1 tablespoon of the fish sauce and 1 teaspoon of the soy sauce, and taste. If you'd like it saltier, add a little more of either.
In a bowl, whisk the egg together with the remaining teaspoon of fish sauce.
Beat the broth with the whisk or a fork while you pour in the egg mixture in a thin stream. The egg should cook immediately. Remove from teh heat.
Pour the soup into a bowl and top with the scallions or green onions.
I sometimes add a dash or two of sesame oil to the soup as well.
Enjoy this beautiful season and the Egg Moon traditions.