SelectionPresent in all civilizations and since the dawn of time, the egg has been a pillar of food. But also everyday cooking. Here are five iconic recipes that sublimate it.
In some ways, the health crisis has had some good, and even some flavor. The successive confinements and other curfews depriving us of restaurants but giving us unexpected free time were all incentives to get into the kitchen. According to a study by Public Health France carried out in May 2020, at the end of the first confinement, 37% of the French population would have returned to their casseroles, regaining the taste of homemade dishes made from fresh products, or even the pleasure of making long-term recipes.
While we noted a surge in purchases of raw products and direct from producers, a multiplication of short circuits and sales “at the bottom of the truck”, some were passionate about pastries and sourdough bread in all its forms. , others tried their hand at complex creations (pâtés en croûte, koulibiacs) or were transported in taste to elsewhere with exotic specialties (sushi, poke bowls, spring rolls, etc.).
If the crisis has shaken society, it has also put certain values back at the center of the plate: common sense, the local, the importance of good and good done, reconnection to the land and nature … So many awareness that has taken hold, more or less durably. One thing is certain, the kitchen was the big winner of this strange period – the greedy ray of sunshine in an often gloomy reality.
The star of containment
The star ingredient of containment, the egg saw its consumption jump in 2020: its sales increased by 44% in March-April 2020, compared to the same period the previous year, even reaching 72% in local networks ( source CNPO, egg interprofessional organization). Ultra-accessible and versatile, present in almost every kitchen in the world, the egg (chicken, duck, goose, quail, peacock or ostrich) has always been at the center of our dishes and our appetites.
It is the pivot that binds preparations, cakes, pasta, sauces – the magic food that can rise, swell, foam, thin, thin, coagulate, solidify, harden … Smooth or grainy, smooth or viscous, it can be cooked a thousand times: boiled, calf, hard, scrambled, poached, fried, omelet, baked, soufflé, jelly, confit or even “parfait” (that is to say, the yolk and the white of the same texture, a feat achieved by baking at 65 ° C).
Rabelais already spoke of it with earthiness in Pantagruel (1532): “These eggs that the gastrolaters sacrifice to their belligerent god: fried eggs, waste, suffocated, steamed, dragged in the ashes, thrown by the fireplace, smeared, gouildronné…”. The egg is suitable for vegetarians, children and the elderly, it is rich but digestible (although easily allergenic), and it concentrates all the nutrients necessary for the creation of a future organism.
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