Salmonella doesn’t normally get into the egg. The Salmonella usually resides on the outside, comes from contact with an infected hen’s feces, (the equivalent of mammalian e.coli) and is different from spoilage. You can get Salmonella from an egg that is freshly laid. The problem arises when people don’t wash a contaminated egg before cracking it or when they let the contents touch the outside of the shell before dumping it into the bowl.
Eggs keep unrefrigerated for a few days if they are fresh. I think the problem with the eggs in your grocer’s refrigerator case is that you don’t know how old they actually are.
It is only recently in Australia that supermarkets are more likely to store their eggs in the refrigerated displays than out on a shelf. If you go to a little mum-and-dad suburban grocery shop, you will still likely see the egg cartons just sitting there on a wire rack. These eggs have probably never seen a refrigerator. I’ve never noticed any difference when I’ve eaten them. And this is a country with ultra-strict food laws too (indeed they now want to make people get a ‘sandwich making licence’ before they can volunteer at local fairs etc).
Thoroughly fresh egg will have a little liquid around the white; the white rising in a steep shape that rounds off to form a plateau; in the plateau the yolk rises in a similar profile and forms a dome. All uses, and these are the ones for fried eggs, poached, scrambled, any use where sensitive tastebuds will recognize good flavor.
After some storage (depending on temp. of storage), there will be more surrounding liquid; the white will not rise sharply and the yolk will rise somewhat. Use for seasoned dishes or less discriminating palates, such as mine.
Beginning to get old: wide liquid, wide flattish white, yolk not above the white and yolk easily broken. Use for baking or hard times; cook thoroughly in any case.
This repeats what Mangeout said. My source is lost in memory, but it was a reliable source (poss. US Dept of Agriculture, Fanny Farmer, Joy of Cooking).
Shells should be washed, especially if eggs are not going to be thoroughly cooked (Ceasar salad dressing, lightly cooked scrambled eggs, fried sunny-side up, etc).
Normally salmonella doesn’t come inside the egg unless it’s already cracked. (Personal belief is that in the US all eggs are washed, probably with some anti-germ preparation, to improve attractiveness and reduce risk of lawsuits.) Salmonella might get into the food upon the egg being cracked, if the outside of the shell is involved.
Standard procedure in the U.S., according to The Food Channel, is to wash the eggs before packaging. I just saw a program on this, and they showed the whole process from chicken butt to store. All automated and definitely included a washing.
Years ago when I was a charter boat captain in the Caribbean, we would carry eggs on the boat unrefrigerated for a couple of weeks without any problems, but we always coated them with shortening (Crisco) to preserve them.
I read that sailors sometimes dip eggs in boiling water for 30 seconds, then they can be stored for many weeks w/o refig. Any truth to this one? (Can’t remember the book)
I grew up on a small farm where we had about 300 chickens. It was said that when you washed them, a protective coating was removed which caused them to spoil faster. Don’t know if it is true.
Well, I may not be a young farm girl, but we raised chickens and used and sold the eggs when I was young, and many of the eggs I took out from under the hens did indeed have little feathers or bits of chicken droppings on them. Stands to reason; I mean, look at where they come from. But, a quick wash, and all was well.
I have heard the opposite, that fresh eggs have a protective coating and will go bad more quickly if it is washed off by boiling. I know from personal experience that a temporarily lost hard cooked Easter egg went bad before the uncooked ones from the same box which were at room temperature. I can’t guarantee they were all of the same age, but I see know reason why they wouldn’t have been.
They explode. A couple of years ago our family made some really beautiful pysanky eggs. We decorated raw eggs, and then put then in a drawer for the next couple of years. During that time, a couple of the eggs just exploded. It smelled awful - not like rotten eggs, which smell like sulfur, but much worse. Funny…only the badly dyed eggs exploded…
Dunno if I heard or read this-it’s been years, but the deal was that a key to preservation of eggs was continued inversion. Letting them sit ad infinitum was bad-flipping the carton every week or so led to extended life. Perhaps this is a question for Cecil-I haven’t searched.