THE EGG

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 328, 5 October 1945, Page 13

THE EGG

(Written for "The Listener" by

DR.

MURIEL

BELL

Nutritionist to

the Health Department) f

EANING the English Egg. The egg. In a shell. One every week in the spring and summer months, but one every fortnight or even one every eight weeks in the winter months. Before the war, the average person had 150 eggs per year. In the first year of the war, the shareout amounted to 38 for the year; in 1942, 29; in 1943, 30; in 1944, 30. The English housewife tries to make the most of the single egg. Like the 2o0z. butter ration, it is kept as a special treat for Sunday. Probably on that day an Englishman really feels himself again, remembering that he was known for his breakfast of bacon and egg. Now, however, if he has bacon and egg, it is served, not for breakfast, but as the main meal of the day. Priority eggs have been 4 per week for expectant and nursing mothers, 3 per week for children under five. Dried egg consequently appears in many of the recipes given, for example, ine the corner devoted to the English Housewife in wartime, in «the English Listener. Dried eggs began to be distributed towards the end of 1942. A packet or tin contaihs the equivalent of 12 eggs, and one of these packets was allowed each time an allocation was made. The period over which an allocation was made was variable-sometimes it was one allocation per four weeks, sometimes two allocations. In April,

1945, it became again one packet. per four weeks. Their Infinite Variety One of the advantages of eggs is their capacity to add variety to the diet. With eggs available in the pantry, the housewife can transfarm her culinary art. Eggs give airiness to a pudding; they fluff up a gooseberry fool and take off some of its acidity; they are the basis for custards, omelettes and souffles; but ‘dried egg,puts something of a limit on the uses to which this article of diet can be directed. Talk as you will of "reconstituted egg," it isn’t an egg with a white and a yolk. And it isn’t as though they had our quantities of milk to fall back on. Take this last year, for example. From July, 1944, to. July, 1945, it has:been 2% to 3 pints per week per person, except for priority classes. An expectant mother gets an extra 7 pints a week; a nursing mother and her baby get 14 pints between them until the baby’s first birthday. Then the baby gets 7 pints a week, and this amount is continued up till the age of five. In addition, the equivalent of 4 pints of skim milk in the form of 1 tin of national household dried milk per customer has been obtainable at intervals of 4 or 8 weeks. In March, 1945, issues of this were discontinued.