I was just watching a History Channel program tonight on American condiments, and during one segment on Heinz Ketchup, they showed an old billboard or something, with Heinz advertising his goodies. Among the usual suspects of pickles and ketchup, I spotted “euchred eggs.”
Hmm. Apart from the meaning specific to the card game, the only definition for “euchre” as a verb in my dictionary is “To defeat; to get the better of; to outplay; to outwit.” So apparently we’re looking for a recipe for defeated eggs.
Anyhow, from the picture it looks like “euchred eggs” are a subset of “pickles.” (The sign reads “-Pickles-,” looking like a column header, with “euchred eggs, onions, etc.” listed below). So I assume pickled would be right, although I’m curious about the origins of the term itself.
Wait. The picture in my link does in fact say “euchred figs.” But I swear that the History Channel had “euchred eggs.” I rewound it on the DVR and my SO also saw “euchred eggs.” But I suppose it could have been the font and it might have read “euchred figs.”
So, I suspect you may be right.
My first thought when I saw the thread title was “reddened eggs” (well, now figs), because I could swear that I’ve seen/heard “euchre” used to mean a reddish color. And that would make sense if the recipe had something to do with ketchup.
But, I can’t seem to find any source to corroborate my feeling that “euchre” could have something to do with the color red: both online dictionaries I just consulted give the definition as being either the card game or “To deceive by sly or underhand means; cheat.”
Now I’m wondering why I’m associating “euchre” with “red” … this thread might send me into therapy.
Since everything else on the toy box car is pickeled, I would assume the figs are, too.
I did find this one reference where someone familiar with pickled figs says euchred figs look like the same thing.
I also found references to euchred crab apples and euchred plums which also indicated pickling.
Which made me wonder if “euchring” is a specific type of pickling. Googling euchring and pickling together turned up a bunch of word lists for crossword puzzles, and one reference to “curing” that mentioned both ecuhring and pickling, but not in any connecting sort of way. So I stopped there.
