Cooking Eggs

Do you have a pan, or nothing but the eggs and the fire?

How about thin, flat rocks? Got any of them around?

BTW, someone could just eat the things raw.

And I'm no bird egg expert, but I doubt whether any of them are poisonous to humans.

I guess I would be more concerned with salmonella from a raw egg from a domestically grown chicken than from a wild bird. But, as I mentioned, I'm no bird egg expert so you might be right.

Well, if there's some large-ish, flat rocks around, someone could make a small "griddle" to use over the fire to cook the eggs, I suppose.

alleycat said:

I guess I would be more concerned with salmonella from a raw egg from a domestically grown chicken than from a wild bird. But, as I mentioned, I'm no bird egg expert so you might be right.

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That's my guess as well. Some risk, yes, but much lower with wild birds than "factory farm" poultry. But I'm no expert, either.

As for the original question, I don't think the rock would have to be particularly thin, as long as it's flat or slightly bowl-shaped on one side. Put it right down into the fire to preheat. Once the flames have died down to a bed of hot coals, you should be able to break the eggs onto the hot rock and cook them very nicely.

A wonderful reference for hearth cooking/cooking with fire:

Magic of Fire by William Rubel
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1580084532/?tag=absolutewritedm-20

I don't have the book with me so I can't check, but another method to cook eggs might be to coat them with mud or clay, then bury them in the embers and let them roast.

The news media and the schools are always trying to frighten you. Do NOT be taken in by the lies. Raw eggs are safe and it sure beats starving.

The salmonella think is Waaaaaaaay overrated. #1: wild bird eggs are less likely to carry salmonella than the eggs from an egg factory. #2: less than 1 percent of egg factory has salmonella. #3: just because you're exposed to salmonella doesn't mean you're gonna get it. Most of the people who get salmonella have weak immune systems (elderly or young children).

I've eaten raw eggs (eggnog, sushi, batter) and I like runny yokes. I have never gotten ill. I'd say that your character should eat the eggs raw. There should be no problem.

If you try to bury the egg in the hot coals, they'll explode. Your MC may be able to find eggs with partially formed baby birds inside, too. You could open those and roast them.

TheIT said:

A wonderful reference for hearth cooking/cooking with fire:

Magic of Fire by William Rubel
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1580084532/?tag=absolutewritedm-20

I don't have the book with me so I can't check, but another method to cook eggs might be to coat them with mud or clay, then bury them in the embers and let them roast.

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This book is reallllyyy cool. I have a copy. (Used to do some hearth cooking with a really cool woman named Mercy Ingraham who helped test some of his recipes. She has an actual working hearth. Wonderful woman all around, anyway.)

I haven't looked at it recently but I believe the book also talks about how to tell what stage a cooking fire is. I think he also has a website where he talks about some woodfired bake ovens as well.

The technique for boiling water without a bowl is as follows: Dig hole, fill with water. Heat rocks over fire, drop in hole. Remove cooled rocks. Add more hot rocks. Repeat until water boils. DO NOT USE POROUS ROCKS! (they can explode)

Or you can boil water in the shell of a tortise, the stomach of a sheep or similar animal, or a section of bamboo.

Sarpedon said:

Or you can boil water in the shell of a tortise, the stomach of a sheep or similar animal, or a section of bamboo.

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And if you can find a tortise or a sheep, cook them too, and serve the eggs as a side dish! ;-)

Horserider said:

Most likely. How would you roast them?

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On the end of a stick over the fire.

The figures I've heard for farm raised eggs is 1/30,000 are contaminated with salmonella. Salmonella is bad news in a factory farm situation; it causes some fairly serious health problems in the birds, and they test for it and generally have salmonella-free birds.

I'd be more worried about wild bird eggs, frankly, though not so worried that I wouldn't eat 'em raw. I eat raw eggs without concern -- quail egg with hot sauce is nummy! Just make sure the eggs are intact, and the shells not cracked.

My NEIGHBOR eats dud eggs from the incubator (kept at 98.5 for several days, until it's clear they're duds), though I've never been that brave. I was hatching chicks for him and he made me give him the duds back so he could have them for breakfast. I didn't ask him how he prepared them -- I didn't want to know. He's a bit of a farm boy.

The thing with eggs is that if they're bad, they go bad really really quickly at room temperature. You'd know. They stink. They stink so bad you can smell it through the shell, and if they've been bad for awhile, they explode like really memorable little stink bombs when you touch them.

(The neighbor's kids would bury eggs in the manure pile and dig them up days later to deliberately make stink bombs! Farm kids ... gotta love 'em.)

However, eggs are designed to survive weeks at 98.5-100 degrees (depending on species) under the mama bird. The same temps that let baby birds grow are perfect for growing bacteria. Any bacterial contamination at all will kill the baby chick. Bacterial contamination happens when there's a flaw in the egg shell, or the egg's been super-saturated in filth.

Though in a survival situation, the heroes will almost certainly find eggs that have varying degrees of "baby bird" in it, from a blood spot to a twitching bit of fetal tissue with a visible beating heart, to an actual fully formed chick. They're all edible (and the presence of a live chick in the egg pretty much guarantees little to no bacterial combination) but, umm, somewhat disconcerting and off-putting to civilized appetites.

You can boil water in a leaf (or in a paper cup). You fold it like a cone and once you have a fire going, you can fill it with water and place it in the embers. The leaf will burn down to the water line, and then boil. Pop in your eggs, and poach 'em.

What about "baking" the egg in the shell? Stick it close to or over the heat.

StephanieFox said:

On the end of a stick over the fire.

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Half-formed baby birds? Not unless they were eagles!

GirlWithPoisonPen said:

What about "baking" the egg in the shell? Stick it close to or over the heat.

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If you can puncture the large end (where the air bubble is) and set it upright in the coals, you might get most of it intact.

Roasting eggs in the coals/embers/ashes is the most common way to cook them without pots or pans.

Horserider said:

Anyone know how you can cook bird eggs over an open fire?

Also is there any way that one can get sick off bird eggs they found. Not like undercooked, but are there particular ones that can make you sick?

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Build a fire, bury the eggs in the hot coals for a while, then dig them out and eat them. Sometimes they break, mostly they don't

You have to make sure the eggs are fresh-laind, or you are going to fond embryo birdies.

No diseases worth worrying about it the eggs are not spoiled, but sea-bird eggs have a strong fishy taste.

I saw this guy on the Discovery Channel eat a snake egg raw in a surviving the wild-type show.

I agree with burying the eggs in the hot coals or putting on a hot rock to cook. I have not tried putting an egg in the hot coals, but I have cooked eggs on concrete before - so I can imagine the hot flat-bowl rock would work.
I did not eat the eggs after cooking them on the concrete; who knows what could've been walking there. Maybe I should've washed the area first and let it heat back up.