How Do You Like Your Eggs?
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? OR do you find them growing on trees? Yes, I'm serious; well maybe not growing on trees, but hanging on the branches!!
Did you ever grow an Easter Egg tree? Well, of course you really don't grow them! You create them! My family used to use a flowering branch from the yard each year, it was stuck into styrofoam placed inside, believe it or not, a gold and white ceramic half egg. That's the one that sat on our table every Easter of my childhood. Grandma preferred hers in a basket and my aunts had there's in different types of vases.
My grandma, mom, and aunts sat around the table days before Easter with sequins, seed beads, ribbon, paper, glitter, glue, and tiny Easter trinkets. Creating the most beautiful eggs that were carefully wrapped in tissue paper for the next year; but each year they would create new ones because a few would have a crack or a few little pieces that broke off and couldn't be repaired. We won't talk about the year my aunt carefully packed some eggs in a flat gift box and put them on the chair next to her at the table while she was filling another box; my uncle not paying attention and my aunt not being able to yell at him quick enough...well I'm sure you know the demise of the box of eggs...CRACK, CRUNCH, PULVERIZED!! My aunt was of course able to get the yell out at that point!
We have so many fond family memories of our holidays growing up; we loved to relive them through the years, but we would laugh loudest when we remembered moments like that; because every holiday came with one of the male members getting in trouble for something! Now there is a future blog which will keep readers laughing!!
Ok, I digressed, yet again; I will take that as my trademark for my blog posts! Now creating the eggs for the tree was a delicate and time consuming process. The first part of the job was to put a pin hole on each end of the egg; swirl the pin around a bit to make it big enough so that you could blow on one end while the contents of the egg came out of the other end. Then they would run very hot water slowly through the egg. If by chance an egg cracked during any of this cleaning process, well those became either the half shell ones that were filled with a little pinch of Easter grass and a chenille chick; or if the crack was in a different place it could become an oval window into the egg where they would glue glitter crosses they fashioned out of paper or little Easter trinkets that you would look inside to see; they would usually edge it in rickrack so that you didn't see the jagged ends of the egg.
Years later, the Easter Egg Tree has shown up in more places, the eggs and decorations have changed a bit; although, some still go for this old tried and true method of creating eggs. I'm sure somewhere, if I search, I will find an article or two telling the health hazards of using real eggshells for decorations. But then again, if I look back at some of the holiday decorations of the past, somehow we all lived to show the pictures and tell the stories of things like tinsel and angel hair and candles on Christmas trees! And when you find that plastic egg with candy behind the seat cushion in the couch next July, it probably is a little safer than finding the real hardboiled eggs that the Easter Bunny used to hide in my yard; it wasn't a pleasant experience to reach for something that caught your eye in a hole in the yard in July, and find that 12th (hardboiled) egg that no one found on Easter in April!
The beloved Easter egg...noun...a hard-boiled egg that is dyed and often decorated as part of the Easter celebration. These are the Easter eggs that most are familiar with and these adorn tables during the Easter meal or sit in baskets for snacking. I haven't taken the time yet, but I would like to research the how and why of letting the eggs sit out versus keeping them refrigerated. I know now as soon as they are dyed, they go back in the cartons and into the refrigerator until they are going to be served. Growing up I remember the basket with the Easter eggs sitting on the table for the whole week in case anyone wanted to grab a quick snack.
I'm sure coloring or dyeing hardboiled eggs started with the traditional methods of dye; herbs, food coloring, and then PAAS took over! The little concentrated tablets that explode in color with a little vinegar and water were actually invented in the late 1800's. Since that time, PAAS has added a variety of kits and decorating options for the holiday! Many others have entered the market since then; I remember an awful experience of dropping this oily color dye onto the surface of the water then swirling your egg in and taking it out; but if you didn't have the right wrist action for swirling your egg came out with a stringy, yucky tail of color attached. Then there was a contraption where you put the egg in this domed container and sprinkled some dye in and then pushed down on a big button (like on old fashion spinning tops) and the egg would whiz around and end up tye-dyed. Then one year we tried stencils and markers.
But of all the kits, there is nothing that says Easter to me then the PAAS kit with the coveted wax crayon, the little stickers, the little spinners you could make from popping out circles from the back of the box and adding toothpicks.....the smell of vinegar wafting in the air...traditionally I would boil the eggs while we had our Lenten fish for our Good Friday meal. Then table cleared and dishes cleaned, we collected the six coffee cups to put the vinegar and water in, while we watched the tablets fizz. We started basic with crosses and names and graduated to smiling faces and the surprised face with a crack going down one side as if the prized egg had been dropped. Now grown, if I am blessed to have my children here for Easter, we have graduated to the Deluxe Kit with 9 colors; both being creative, the eggs are more intricate and they spend more time and of course they still argue about who made mom's egg last year and too late I already made hers and put it in the dye (I secretly love that, won't fib about that)!!
There are always the dropped eggs, the ones that roll off the drying rack, and little mishaps; after all you are working with the fragile egg!! This year it was my oldest who decided he would modernize one of my tasks, and who wins the award for the messiest egg mishap ever! Growing up I loved Shrinky Dinks!! You would make a design on a sturdy piece of clear plastic film, cut it out and put it in the oven; it would come out shrunken from the heat as a very hard and sturdy piece of plastic that could be used for things like keychains, bracelets, necklaces; well you get the idea (if you don't look them up, they have their years of being popular, good retro fun!). PAAS took a similar idea of plastic shrinking from heat and made the Easter egg accessory called wrap-arounds. You put these decorated plastic sleeves on the egg, put them on a spoon and take them for a dip in boiling water. The plastic would shrink and wrap itself tight around the egg. Ta-da instant decoration with little work!
Fast forward to this year's Easter, I hadn't used these in years, but my oldest decided that since they were in the kit let's do a few. Of course, mom's way has to be modernized so enter the microwave! After dyeing his egg, he put the wrap around on the egg, put it on the rotating plate in the microwave and ta-da...EGG EXPLOSION!!! I'm not sure if he didn't set the time correctly or if this was even an option on the box; let it suffice to say that I have cleaned splattered sauce or gravy in the microwave and that is messy; but this was beyond messy. All I know is, as I tell my students, it's messy if you don't clean it up; so I handed him a roll of paper towels and stood back to supervise!!
in the middle of clean up...
In the end I'm sure this will find it's way back to me as I have to admit I was the first one to show them the excitement of microwaving a Peep!! After all, I'm a teacher, curiosity gets to me and it makes for good story telling in the classroom!! Try it! It is a lot of fun!! They puff up just like we feel after treating jelly beans as a healthy veggie option, and forgetting that chocolate covered marshmallow eggs or peanut butter eggs are not a breakfast item!!
So however you like your eggs; whether hanging on tree branches, filled with candy and surprises, hardboiled and dyed, or filled with peanut butter or marshmallow and dipped in chocolate! Today enjoy a few Easter eggs and have a Happy Easter!!