02/11/2023
Another unique Irish culinary invention is buttered eggs, a unique and tasty way to preserve eggs.
Invented in time immemorial , probably due to the proliferation of butter on the island, the Irish developed this way to preserve eggs. It became so popular that exportation of buttered eggs to England numbered in the tens of thousands of dozens every year during the English colonial times .
Because the shell is porous, it absorbs the butter to form a more protective seal. Curious, I took one home. Soft-boiled, it tasted fresh from the hen, the yolk the color of sunshine, the white carrying with it a whiff of cream. Today buttered eggs are a delicacy, largely vanished from Irish farmyards and pantries. You can't butter eggs by machine, as it’s an intimate practice involving the hand . Every one needs to be done by hand. Farmers' wives used to say it was a task most difficult to execute in winter, when the butter was harder and their hands were colder. So perhaps in addition to the egg and the butter, what I taste is the memory of an Irish woman whose palm coaxed butter lovingly all the way around a fragile shell, hoping to preserve it for as long as she could.
That might seem counterintuitive. Why waste butter on the outside of an egg? But clever Irish farmers had hit on buttering eggs as a way to preserve them during winters, when hens produce less. Taking freshly-laid, still-warm eggs, farm families rolled them in their buttery palms. The butter helped solidify the hot, brittle shells, sealing off the yolky contents from the outside air.
Buttered eggs take on a shiny gleam. And, as an added bonus, the taste of butter permeates the egg, making it even richer when cracked opened and cooked. Eggs preserved this way keep for up to six months in a cool place and I have had them last even longer . It’s not surprising that buttered eggs were a Cork specialty, seeing as it’s also home to the Cork Butter Museum, a tribute to the region’s status as a butter-producing powerhouse.
They can be found at markets in Ireland and I make them regularly as a homestead speciality. If you keep chickens or know someone local who does , then you can too !
I just lightly brush my eggs off with a dry rag and butter away but I have awesome nest boxes keeping my eggs very clean .
If your eggs have too much p**p on them, and you can’t figure out how to clean them off without washing them then this process is probably not for you.
