Regency Household: Choosing Butter and Eggs at the Market

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To choose Butter and Eggs When you buy butter taste it yourself and do not trust to the taste they give you lest you be deceived by a well tasted and scented piece artfully placed in the lump Salt butter is better scented than tasted by putting a knife into it and putting it immediately to your nose but if it be a cask it may be purposely packed therefore trust not to the top alone but unhoop it to the middle thrusting your knife between the staves of the cask and then you cannot be deceived When you buy eggs put the great end to your tongue if it feels warm it is new but if cold it is stale and according to the heat or coldness of it the egg is newer or staler Or take the egg hold it up against the sun or candle if the white appears clear and fair and the yolk around it is good but if muddy or cloudy and the yolk broken it is bad Or take the egg and put it into a pan of cold water the fresher it is the sooner it will sink to the bot tom but if it be rotten or addled it will swim on the surface of the water The best way to keep them is in bran or meal though some place their small ends downwards in fine wood ashes but for
longer keeping burying them in salt will preserve them almost in any climate Millington, C. (1805). The Housekeeper’s Domestic Library; Or, New Universal Family Instructor in Practical Economy: Containing the Whole Art of Cookery, in All Its New and Fashionable Varieties, with Proper Instructions for Baking, Roasting, Boiling, Broiling, Frying, Hashing, Stewing, Fricaseeing, Ragooing, with Confectionary in All Its Branches … Also, the Complete Art of Carving, and Performing the Honours of the Table with Grace and Propriety, Likewise New Bills of Fare, Made Dishes of All Descriptions, Directions for Marketing, &c. &c. United Kingdom: W. Flint, Old Bailey.

I have seen some debates in online spaces about the preservation of eggs, so thought I would share this Regency version.

 

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