Egg : a dozen ovatures

Egg A dozen ovatures

Lizzie Stark

Book - 2023

The egg is a paradox--both alive and not alive--and a symbol as old as culture itself. In this wide-ranging and delightful journey through its natural and cultural history, Lizzie Stark explores the egg's deep meanings, innumerable uses, and metabolic importance through a dozen dazzling specimens. From Mali to Finland, mythologies around the globe have invested the egg with powers of regeneration and fecundity, often ascribing the origin of the world to a cosmic egg. An oracle to Romans, fought over by Gold Rush gangs, used as the foundation of the Clown Egg Registry, and blasted into space, the egg has taken on larger proportions than, say, the ovum of an ostrich. It has starred in global dishes from the Korean comfort food ttukbaegi ...gyeranjjim to the less regaled yet iconic soft-boiled egg. Stark writes a biography of French-born chef Jacques ̌Ppin through his egg creations, and weaves in her personal experiences, like attempting to make the perfect omelet or trying her hand at pysanky--the Ukrainian art of egg decoration. She also explores her fraught relationship to the eggs in her body due to a familial link to cancer, and shares her delight in becoming a mother. Filled with colorful characters and fascinating morsels, Egg is playful, informative, and guarantees that you'll never take this delicate ovoid for granted again. --

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Subjects
Eggs as food.
Eggs > History.
Food habits.
Food > Social aspects.
Eggs.
Informational works.
Genres
Informational works
Published
New York : W.W. Norton & Company [2023]
Language
English
Main Author
Lizzie Stark (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
xxiii, 212 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9780393531503
  • Prologue
  • 1. Cosmic Egg
  • 2. Egg Hunt
  • 3. Egg Rush
  • 4. Egg Money
  • 5. Egg Gurus
  • 6. Velvet Eggs
  • 7. Pysanky
  • 8. Clown Eggs
  • 9. Egg Toss
  • 10. Space Eggs
  • 11. Egg Cures
  • 12. Human Eggs
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Index
Review by Booklist Review

"The egg is a universe in a shell," Stark whimsically observes in her collection of egg-centered essays. Focusing primarily on chicken eggs, she contemplates the magnificence of ova on multiple levels as progenitor of new life, symbol, and sustenance, tracking cultural associations. She addresses the presence of an egg in many creation myths, eggs as biomedical medium (for influenza vaccine production), poultry-rearing, egg-decorating, collecting eggshells, experimenting on eggs in outer space, and lots of egg-based cuisine. Stark's perky prose and awe make for entertaining reading. Yet she is troubled by how confined "female chickens are consigned to lives of reproductive servitude." Feathery facts flock. Sex between chickens is reported as "pretty kinky." Japan ranks as a top three nation for egg consumption per person. Hens have somewhere between a 10-to-35 percent lifetime risk of ovarian cancer on average, but for humans it's slightly over one percent. Stark writes frankly about her own heightened genetic risk of ovarian cancer and the decision to have her ovaries removed at 39. Beyond the yolk and white, eggs are full of surprises.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Science, history, art, and food come together in this quirky examination of eggs from journalist Stark (Pandora's DNA). Stark proves to be an excellent storyteller as she charts the surprising role eggs have played throughout history and across cultures: she covers the "egg rush" on the Farallon Islands in 1848, when one could make a fortune with eggs; the horrors of industrial-scale chicken farming; the "clown egg registry" located in a basement in London, where famous clowns are immortalized by having their likenesses drawn on eggs; and how research done on eggs in space has taught scientists a great deal about human illness and physiology. Elsewhere, Stark muses on the favorite egg dishes of French chef Jacques Pépin ("While he was the chef at France's top political household, he sometimes made deep-fried eggs as a first course for dinner parties"), and though she mostly focuses on chicken eggs, she discusses those of humans, as well, including some insights into how she came to love her own eggs after having her ovaries removed at 39 in an attempt to prevent the ovarian cancer that has plagued generations of women in her family. This delightful paean to the egg is equal parts fun, philosophical, educational, and irreverent. (Mar.)

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