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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Lifestyle
Independent Staff

The mighty egg: A cultural and culinary history of our favourite household ingredient

Urs Fischer. Courtesy of the artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London and Bobby Doherty

Poached, scrambled, boiled, whipped into a cocktail, transformed into a painting medium, tossed at an enemy’s house. As the most striking of paradoxes, the egg exists in happy suspension between humble household ingredient and ever-powerful source of life.

One of the most enduring symbols throughout antiquity, eggs were used by the Romans to dispel evil spirits, modelled as priceless artefacts for the Russian nobility, and were woven into Egyptian mythology.

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