easter was 2 weeks ago..

April 8, 2005 3:33 PM

Easter was 2 weeks ago...more or less. Wife made some hard-boiled eggs to color. Our 20 month old did her 1st real colored egg. How can we preserve it?

it is currently in the fridge. the shell looks whole, no visible cracks. how can we make it last?

posted by ShawnString to human relations (18 comments total)

Blow the yolk and white out like this.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 3:36 PM on April 8, 2005

you can't blow hard boild eggs.
i hope.
posted by andrew cooke at 3:38 PM on April 8, 2005

dude:

this is a perfect candidate for encasing in plastic resin (since I'm assuming you're never gonna want to do interact with in any way other than visual)

TAP Plastics could help you out here.

most of the guys at TAP have been trained in all the products they sell, so hopefully they'd be able to advise you as to whether the resin would have an adverse effect on the dye.

It'd make a nice paperweight.
posted by fishfucker at 3:54 PM on April 8, 2005

(or you could probably just coat it with a bunch of layers of mod podge or something and just be really careful with it -- imagine the insides will eventually dry out and stuff).
posted by fishfucker at 3:55 PM on April 8, 2005

Have it bronzed? Haha, sorry, I find this question really humorous- it's possibly one of the craziest things a parent wants to save that I've ever heard. But then again, my parents (read: Mom) threw most everything from my childhood away.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 3:56 PM on April 8, 2005 [1 favorite]

I like fishfucker's idea. You could make it into a paperweight by encasing it in plastic. I do wonder, though, whether bacteria and such already living in the egg wouldn't just eat it into sludge in a few years...
posted by odinsdream at 4:39 PM on April 8, 2005

Could we take some pictures and throw the rotting thing away?

Unless your 20-month-old's name is Faberge and by 'colored' you mean encrusted with jewels.

Saving every single memento sounds romantic but can be a very bad trap to fall into.
posted by sageleaf at 4:45 PM on April 8, 2005

whether bacteria and such already living in the egg wouldn't just eat it into sludge in a few years...

whoa. that'd be super cool (though i somehow doubt the resin would fail to preserve it).

still, now i want to run off and encase living material in plastic.
posted by fishfucker at 4:58 PM on April 8, 2005

Saw it in half with a sharp bread knife then remove the egg halfs from the two sides of the shell. Carefully flatten out the shell and do with it what you will. It will crack, but most of the stinky crap will be out of it, and you will have a nice flat piece of art all to frame, cracked up like an ancient fresco.
posted by fire&wings at 5:06 PM on April 8, 2005

Instead of a bread knife, score it with an x-acto, lengthwise, carefully, carefully, carefully, until you've cut through it. then remove the insides. Wash it out, and fill it with --- oh, I don't know.

I suspect anything other than a surgeon's knife (and touch) will result in squishing, cracking, and disappointment.
posted by crunchland at 5:17 PM on April 8, 2005

Not to derail, but I worked at a museum where we had a collection of ukranian painted eggs. Now, these ususally aren't hard boiled, in fact, they are usually just shells as the contents are supposed to have been blown out. But we had a couple that were painted with everything still inside.

One broke. We had to close the museum for a week it stunk so bad. (The egg was 25 years old.) So when we had ot move, I was entrusted with packing the remaining eggs - including three that had hardened yolks rolling around inside. Luckily, all moved just fine without any further breakage, but those boxes still stunk when we opened them.

Long story short - take a picture and don't be that guy.
posted by jmgorman at 8:09 PM on April 8, 2005

Listen -- When I was a kid, we used to dye hard-boiled eggs and hide them like a lot of people. One year, apparently, we missed one. It was very cannily hidden in a bunch of dried flowers in a vase where nobody looked. WE didn't find until maybe a year later.

It had completely dried. There was a hardened yolk rolling around in it. WE thought it was hilarious and kept it for a long time with random knickknacks on a shelf. What can I say, we are a quirky family. Eventually it broke, and it didn't stink at all.

I suspect JMGorman's egg was never boiled, and that's why it released the sulfur smell when broken. I think if it really means a lot to you, drying is worth a try. Set it out in the garage or some really out-of-the-way place where it won't be disturbed and air can get around it. It'll be OK.

On the other hand, I hesitate to wonder -- if you save this, what else would you save? Where you gonna draw the line, man?
posted by Miko at 8:27 PM on April 8, 2005

Sorry, I'm not trying to emphasize the word "WE". It seems to be a frequent typo problem for me.
posted by Miko at 8:28 PM on April 8, 2005

Water glass (sodium silicate) has been used to preserve eggs, but usually for eventual consumption (about 1 year).
posted by 445supermag at 8:52 PM on April 8, 2005

I don't know how to preserve the egg, but let me just say I think saving the eggs is a nice thing to do. My family saved mine for years, and my cousin has her kids' easter eggs in a shadow box in the dining room.

This need not lead to saving every little memento..these just happen to be pretty mementos just like any other kiddie art.

That said, my eggs and my cousins were blown out. Next year, blow them out.
posted by duck at 10:05 PM on April 8, 2005

I would have thought a few coats with some sort of clear plastic paint would preserve the painting (compatability of paints being the operative information to find).
Being boiled and intact, the contents should be both sterile and the protein already denatured. East asians eat a product called 'thousand year old eggs' which are buried I believe - for some months anyway. Unless you did as suggested above in terms of a paper weight or the like (encasing) I'd be surprised if your egg would survive the rigors of modern living for more than a couple of years. If you did put a clear finish on it, it would only be to preserve the paint underneath - the egg will always be vulnerable. But my guess would be that no odour will come from it unless it were broken - the protein would break down a bit more but without bugs or air, I wouldn't have thought that it would go completely rank.
posted by peacay at 11:14 PM on April 8, 2005

I'd have to second jmgorman's warning. Once my family decided to do an egg hunt with hard boiled eggs. Bad idea. We missed one, and it broke a year or two later. The things in that box stunk for a very, very long time. Perhaps it hadn't reached the state that Miko's had, but... I'd still be a little leery of saving a hard-boiled egg after that experience.
posted by ubersturm at 11:40 PM on April 8, 2005

if you are going to try saving it, i'd suggest not coating it in anything. sounds like your best hope is that it dries out before it goes bad, and any coating is going to trap moisture inside.
posted by andrew cooke at 4:13 AM on April 9, 2005