# “The French don’t refrigerate their eggs”. Really? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 28, 2003, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029 "2003-10-28T15:05:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![CBEscapee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@CBEscapee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBEscapee)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/41 "2003-10-29T01:59:58Z")
In Mexico they aren’t refrigerated and are sold by weight. ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/42 "2003-10-29T02:00:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CnoteChris \* > \*\*OK. I’m stumped. > > Where’s the irony? \*\* Maybe it’s the fact that the French are infamous as being “chickens”? ---
**Author:** ![Daikona](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8baadc/32.png) [@Daikona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daikona)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/43 "2003-10-29T02:06:46Z")
My family only refridgerates eggs when we have enough that they’re going to be around more than a couple of weeks. Granted, we raise chickens, and they’ve all been tested negative for salmonella (my father takes some of them to shows, anda negativetest is an entry requirement), so the risk of that is zero. I’ve never noticed any off taste in them, though I suppose that it could just be I’m so used to it that store bought refridgerated eggs are what tastes odd. ---
**Author:** ![Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnac_the_Magnificent)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/44 "2003-10-29T03:11:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Exapno Mapcase \* > \*\*Don’t forget that people ate eggs for millennia before refrigeration. If you live close to farms and use eggs daily, they will always be fresh when you eat them. > > Refrigeration is more of a need when you buy a dozen eggs and have them for a week or two before they are used up. \*\* Given the alarming mortality rates among people over the “millennia”–mortality from a host of bacterial and viral infections–I wouldn’t put too much stock in tradition. Some forms of salmonella originate inside the hen. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Long\_Road](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5a626/32.png) [@The\_Long\_Road](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Long_Road)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/45 "2003-10-29T03:23:45Z")
During the same “How to Boil Water” show I mentioned, the chef claimed that you can tell if eggs are bad by placing them in a sink filled with room temperature tap water. If an egg floats, it is bad and should be thrown out. Has anyone tried this method? ---
**Author:** ![FilmGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@FilmGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FilmGeek)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/46 "2003-10-29T04:28:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Long Road \* > \*\*During the same “How to Boil Water” show I mentioned, the chef claimed that you can tell if eggs are bad by placing them in a sink filled with room temperature tap water. If an egg floats, it is bad and should be thrown out. Has anyone tried this method? \*\* I have tried it. It works. The gas in a rotten (or rotting) egg makes them float. Of course, I checked the one that floated. That was not cool. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/47 "2003-10-29T08:17:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JRR \* > \*\*Europe has a long history of leaving perfectly good food out in the dirt to “Age” it. > > [Especially Norway.](http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/norween/) \*\* Don’t really know who this guy is, but if he’s Norwegian, he’s clearly not a cook. _Gravlaks_ is salmon which has been salted and rubbed with spices, then left in a cool place to, ahem, “slightly ferment”. Nothing to do with burying it, although _grave_ does mean “bury” in Norwegian. Anyway, this can be done with many types of fish; salmon is just the most popular. _Lutefisk_ starts out as dried fish, usually cod. This is simply hung to dry in the open air, even today (covered with nets to keep the birds away). This fish will keep for a long time but is obviously not very easy to eat in that shape, so it is soaked in water and/or cooked for a long time. Think bacalao. Anyway, _lutefisk_ is made by soaking the dried fish in a lye-and-water solution until it’s soft, then in plain water until the lye is out and the fish is safe to eat again. The process requires days of soaking and many changes of water, but apparently is still faster than just soaking in plain water. It does, however, give the fish a gelatin-like texture and a strong smell. You either love it or you hate it; lord help me, I married into a family that loves it. Never heard of this _myrmelk_ and it’s not in the dictionary nor my cookbook on traditional Norwegian cooking. Wonder if it’s a corruption of _merrmelk_, which would be simply mare’s milk, i.e. from a horse. Strong-tasting, I’ve been told, but not deadly. Many Norwegians believe that Icelanders bury shark meat underground for three to six months to age it. I’ve been told by an Icelander that this is nonsense; the meat is hung to age it, using the same process meat packing plants still use for beef and so on. And just to be on-topic, Norwegians refrigerate their eggs, but the best-before date stamped on the packages now has to show when the eggs would be safe to eat if left unrefrigerated. Some sort of European regulation. ---
**Author:** ![Ponster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponster/32/17081_2.png) [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/48 "2003-10-29T08:52:40Z")
Just had a chat with friends here at work and some others I know in cyberland and out of the 26 I talked to, only 2 either kept or have families that keep their eggs in the fridge. I know it’s not exactly a Gallup poll but best I can do! They were from Englian, Ireland, France, Spain, Holland, Denmark and Italy. Maybe we could turn the questions around to… “The Americans refrigerate their eggs”. Really? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![trabi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecae2f/32.png) [@trabi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trabi)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/49 "2003-10-29T08:54:31Z")
Here (Hungary) eggs are unrefrigerated in the shops (or fresh from the chicken if you buy at a market), so I don’t know whether it’s worth bothering sticking them in the fridge after they’ve been sitting on a shelf at room temperature for who knows how many days anyway. The only reason I refrigerate my eggs is because my fridge happens to have a handy egg-tray built in, which frees up cupboard space and prevents them from getting broken. ---
**Author:** ![Zorro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ad7895/32.png) [@Zorro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zorro)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/50 "2003-10-29T09:14:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CnoteChris \* > \*\*You had me believing you right up until the chicken shit furnaces part, Zorro. Don’t know if you should be commended or beaten. > > Whatever the case, you Europeans have some issues. > \*\* **CnoteChris** , I wouldn’t discount the concept of chicken shit burning power stations out of hand (real link follows): [http://www.fibrowatt.com/UK-Thetford/](http://www.fibrowatt.com/UK-Thetford/) According to a civil engineer friend of mine who was dragged out there to visit the place (he was working on a straw burning facility of similar design) and I am reliably informed that it is one of the most vomit-inducing horrible experiences ever. You see, they had a problem with the chicken shit hoppers. They were designed on the assumption that chicken shit was homogeneous in its density. Of course, it is no such thing. I decants into its solid and liquid parts, and the solids settle into a dense slurry at the bottom. As a result, the Archimedes’ screws that had to take the fowl poo from the hoppers to the furnaces were jammed. In addition, as the liquid part evaporated, the hoppers contained a far greater weight of crap that they were designed for and started to buckle, and… Look, I can’t go on with this story, it’s making me feel ill. **Zazie** , je ne sais pas non plus pourquoi les gens mettent la moutarde et la confiture au frigo. ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/51 "2003-10-29T10:12:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Usram \* > \*\*Hmmm, maybe the French don’t get irony either \*\* 😕 Apparently you don’t understand what irony is. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/52 "2003-10-29T11:22:58Z")
I was merely referring to the tongue-in-cheek nature of **Zorro** ’s contributions to this thread. ---
**Author:** ![CnoteChris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/278dde/32.png) [@CnoteChris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CnoteChris)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/53 "2003-10-29T11:48:12Z")
Which at this point, aren’t helping any. Yeah fine the kidding was fun and all in the beginning, I guess. But it’d help if he knew when to let up on a joke. Listen, it’s not just a blow-off question. I’m curious about it and wonder what the health ramifications of unrefrigerated eggs are, if any. This psuedo-bs that’s kinda right and kinda wrong, right in the middle of people sorting it all out, or at least explaining it, is confusing at worst, and at best, growing old at this point. Ha Ha. Could we move on now? ---
**Author:** ![Coil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Coil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coil)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/54 "2003-10-29T12:36:09Z")
Adding another data point, for whatever it is wort. Sweden: Eggs are sold refrigerated (and quite often by the dozen) and I have never heard of anyone storing them in room temperature. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/55 "2003-10-29T13:12:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Captain Lance Murdoch \* > \*\*On a related note, I heard the folks on The Splendid Table gushing over French butter and cheese which they say is often unpasteurized. My first thought was “ack,” but I then again I avoid butter altogether because it’s so unhealthy when it IS pasteurized. > > \*\* As for cheeses, you might know that there’s a awfully large number of different cheeses produced in France. Some are always pasteurized. Some are never pasteurized. Some comes both ways : pasteurized or non pasteurized, and you’ve to ask the vendor whether you prefer, say your “Saint Nectaire” pasteurized or not. The issue with pasteurization is that it kills all the bacterias, and it happens that in a lot of cases, the cheese taste comes at least partly from the bacterias it contains. So, at least for people who love cheese, there’s a significant difference in taste for the same kind of cheese, depending on it having been pasteurized or not. Though I must say that, even non pasteurized, it’s more and more difficult to find a really good cheese, particulary in Paris. But then, I’ve rather high standarts when it comes to cheese. French people don’t want their cheese to be mandatorily pasteurized. When you hear a frenchman ranting about the european union, it’s very likely that he will mention the attempt of the EU to make pasteurization mandatory, years ago, ( like it were the most important regulation the EU ever envisioned :rolleyes: ). As for butter, it’s quite always pasteurized, except in the specialized “fromageries” (thanks for the word) I already mentionned. Finally, french people don’t particulary like a “slightly rotten” taste in their food It’s usually only done with game meat, and even then, not everybody like this taste. Eggs just don’t spoil that quickly (I mentionned that people refrigerate them here , but that in some shops they aren’t, so it doesn’t seem to be an issue health-wise, or else it would be regulated). Reading this thread, it’s quite obvious that people refrigerate their eggs in some countries and don’t in others. So it doesn’t seem that not refrigerating eggs is a major health hazzard. By the way, I would mention that “pasteurized eggs”, which I understand are sold in the US, are totally unheard of here. I was very surprised to learn that such a thing existed. I’ve also been told than poultry being infected by salmonella is way more common in the US than in Europe, but I absolutely don’t know if this is true. If it is, it would possibly explain why american people and food authorities are more cautious when it comes to eating food including raw eggs, not pasteurized eggs, or not overcooked eggs. ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/56 "2003-10-29T14:27:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CnoteChris \* > **Which at this point, aren’t helping any.** My thoughts exactly. I thought we were kind of fussy about factual accuracy in GQ. Apparently it’s ok to write any old rubbish as long as it’s a somewhat obscure joke intended to mislead. End result is that I can’t believe anything **Zorro** has to say in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/57 "2003-10-29T14:38:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by clairobscur \* > **French people don’t want their cheese to be mandatorily pasteurized. When you hear a frenchman ranting about the european union, it’s very likely that he will mention the attempt of the EU to make pasteurization mandatory, years ago, ( like it were the most important regulation the EU ever envisioned :rolleyes: ).** A little off topic, but things like this burn me too. Here in Michigan it’s already mandatory that apple cider be pasteurized if sold in non-farm stores. Starting some time next year, the pasteurization requirement will also apply to farm stores, i.e, the farmers’ market vendors and the cider mill at the orchard. For those of you who are accustomed to non-pasteurized cider, you’ll realize the travesty in this. I guess I’ll have to plant my own orchard and build my own cider press… Oh, this is because a few young’ns and a few old people got _e. coli_ infections from non-pasteurized cider. Dang immune-deficient people spoiling it for everyone. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Zorro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ad7895/32.png) [@Zorro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zorro)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/58 "2003-10-29T14:50:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Futile Gesture \* > \*\* > End result is that I can’t believe anything **Zorro** has to say in this thread. \*\* The bit about the chicken sh\*t burning power plant in Norfolk was absolutely true. The rest is “based on a true story”, as they say in Hollywood. I’m sorry if I caused any confusion. Just to clarify: outside of China, as far as I’m aware, no-one eats rotten eggs. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/59 "2003-10-29T14:56:33Z")
> [@](#): > > shops selling only cheese (I don’t know the english word for them) which traditionnally also sell butter (not packed) , cream and eggs (not in cartoons). Sounds like the old Dairy Mart back in Ohio! ---
**Author:** ![august9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7993a0/32.png) [@august9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/august9)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2003, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029/60 "2003-10-29T15:49:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Coil \* > \*\*Adding another data point, for whatever it is wort. > > Sweden: Eggs are sold refrigerated (and quite often by the dozen) and I have never heard of anyone storing them in room temperature. \*\* The same goes for Denmark. I’ve never met anybody who did not refrigerate their eggs. Also, we can by pastuerized eggs (whole or seperated into yolks and whites). There’s a general awareness around possible salmonella contamination of eggs and chicken meat, and people are advised to use pastuerized for everything that are not heated thoroughly (like icecream). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-don-t-refrigerate-their-eggs-really/210029.md?page=4)