Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Chicken or Black Tit?

In England in 1946, egg taste-testers were used to test The Palatability of Eggs and Birds. In a six-year study with the Cambridge Egg Panel, one of many similar bodies formed during second world war to help regulate the nation's food supply. Participants tasted the eggs of 212 bird species. This resulted in a 129-page report called The Palatability of Eggs and Birds: For the egg panellists, "samples were tested in the form of a scramble, prepared over a steam-bath, without any addition of fat or condiment". Each taster assessed each sample on a scale dropping from "ideal" way down to "repulsive and inedible".

The paper concludes with a list of the different egg types "in descending order of acceptability". Keep in mind that these are the aggregate preferences; individual tastes may vary. Most acceptable: chicken, then emu, coot and black-backed gull. The eggs of last resort, as rated by official British egg-tasting persons: green woodpecker, Verreaux's eagle owl, wren, speckled mousebird and, dead last, black tit.

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