Okay, I notice that eggs and beer bottles and sausages and doughnuts etc are sold mainly by the dozen in Canada and the United States. I would guess that the dozen and the gross are compatible with old British imperial measures. So do the French buy their beer and eggs in lots of tens ?
another guess, but I am pretty sure that the dozen was brought over from the Old World, and I am also assuming that they stick to old habits (metric is an exception to the rule, of course) as strongly as we do…
well, if it helps, I translated a bit I found by gooling on the french words for egg and dozen, and I found this:
En ce qui concerne la taille de l’oeuf, il existe également des normes établies pour le classement selon le poids, qui est déterminé par le poids à la douzaine.
which translates to (thanks to alti vista’s babel fish):
With regard to the size of egg, there are also standards established for the classification according to weight’s, which is determined by the weight with the dozen.
er, make that googling
:smack:
I’m sure that there will be different packings available if you look for them, but we buy our sodas and eggs by the half-dozen in the French supermarkets.
I would guess the “dozen” custom survives throughout the western world. However, in Korea, where packaging of any kind for food is a relatively new phenomena, eggs are sold in cartons of 10.
Here in Japan, too. A “deca”, or maybe “decova” of eggs?! 
In Austria (and from what I know also in Germany) we buy eggs in packs of 10 or 6. 10 is the primary package size, but some people do not need so many eggs so there are smaller packages as well. This number happens to be 6. The only reason I can think of is that 5 would make no sense, as you will always want to pack an even number of eggs into a rectangular carton. I have also seen packages of 4, but they are quite uncommon.
MartinL, I think that´s a relatively new development though, as the word “Dutzend” still exists and is even still used in remoter (i.e. rural) areas.
For what it´s worth, in Spain you can also get a “docena de huevos”, though “decena” (10) isn´t that uncommon either.
In my local supermarket in Ireland, I can buy eggs by the dozen, the half-dozen, or for one brand, in a pack of 10. In the grocery or butchers, I can buy them by the slab of 24.
universe.zip, I agree that the word “Dutzend” is still around, and especially older people and people in rural areas use it frequently.
On the other hand, as far as the size of egg packages is concerned, it has been that way for at least 25 years here.
I have also had a look at as many refrigerators as I could find (some of them quite old) and they all accomodate exactly 10 eggs (talking about those indentations in one of the trays fixed to the door designed to hold eggs).
Interesting. I just took a look in my one-year old Japanese fridge, and discovered that its egg tray on the door has 14 egg-spaces! (I never buy eggs, so, that’s where my spice jars go.)
Kinda ironic if they do, seeing as the word dozen comes from the French in the first place.
I frequently do my grocery shopping in France, and eggs are normally sold in packs of 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and (I think) 18. I think the most popular size is 6.
An other interresting point, regarding French eggs, is that they are almost exclusively brown. (As opposed to Sweden (where I used to do my shopping), where they are predominantly white.)
Hi, I’m french…
The most usual “format” for buying your eggs in France are by 6 or 12 (I don’t count what you can buy in he supermarket wher it is also sold by 18 or 20)
12 eggs are “une douzaine” (a dozen)
6 eggs are “une demi-douzaine” (half a dozen)
“Douzaine” come from the word “Douze” witch means “Twelve” in english.
I think those are old measures that are older than the metric system adopted april 7, 1795…
Some other units are still in use like “une Livre” (one pound) which is 500g.
A+:D
Bienvenue au SDMB, altere90!
Another voice chiming in from France to confirm that eggs (and some other items, eg roses) are still sold by the ‘douzaine’ despite the Revolution and the metric system !
The French language has a series of ‘numberical nouns’ constructed along the lines of ‘dozen’ - dizaine (10), vingtaine (20), trentaine (30) etc. AFAIK the only instances of this construction which aren’t tens are ‘douzaine’ (12), ‘huitaine’ (8 days) and ‘quinzaine’ (15)- maybe just because its euphonious - you’d have to ask a historian/etymologist what that’s all about…
other fun fact - ‘quarantaine’ (40) is also found as the English word ‘quarantine’ of disease/isolation fame
Merci, jjimm:)
Refrigerator manufacturers finally figured out than most consumers don’t wait until they are entirely out of eggs before they go shopping, but get more eggs when they’re down to their last one or two. So they’ve started putting in a few more than a carton’s worth of spaces for eggs so that they will all fit in the door.
Worst place to keep eggs is those preformed cut-outs on the door anyway. ------
Best thing to do is to leave them in that styrofoam egg carton.
Eggs age from --1-------handling-------(every time the yolk moves around the egg ages.)----so just taking them out of the carton and putting them on the door has a serious aging effect.
And 2—from condensation on them (reason for that styofoam carton.) Leaving them out in the open on the door means the eggs ‘sweat’ every time you open and close the fridge door.==go from “A” to “C” quality or less very quickly that way.
But what the hell, you can always scramble the eggs when the yolks turn into being as flat as a pancake. I like scrambled eggs.
Of course if you eat the eggs fairly fast you will not notice any difference in quality no matter what you do.
(It is a bit of a shame though that the egg producers have tried to be so careful to make a container to optimize egg freshness---------and the first thing most people do is screw everthing up, take the eggs out of that carton and put them uncovered on the door. )