Scientists say that there were chickens in America long ago. But, these chickens weren’t the same kinds of chickens that lay our eggs today. Historians believe that the first chickens related to today’s egg layers were brought to America by Columbus’ ships.

There are lots of interesting shapes – some natural, some manmade. For example, a dinner plate and a wheel on a bike or a skate are round circles. A ball or an orange is a sphere, a circle that has depth. Tree trunks, soda straws and the tubes that hold paper towels are cylinders. You might eat a scoop of ice cream in a cone or ride on a road that has safety cones set out. Maybe you had a slice of pizza or a slice of pie shaped like a triangle at lunch today. You can walk on a sidewalk made up of sections that are squares. A square with length, width and height is called a cube. Your television set is probably shaped like a cube and some freezer trays make little blocks of ice that are cube shaped. Usually writing paper is a rectangle and so is an envelope.

You can probably find many things around you that are these shapes and other shapes, too. While you’re looking around at shapes, can you think of the name for the shape of an egg?

After eggs are laid, gathered and washed, they get graded and sized before they’re packed into cartons. The grade is decided by checking both the outside and the inside of the egg. On the outside, the checker looks to see if the shell is clean and unbroken and has a normal shape and texture – without bumps, ridges, thin spots or rough areas. The shell color doesn’t matter. On the inside, the checker looks to see if the white is firm, thick and clear. The checker also looks to see if the yolk is the right size and shape and has no blemishes. Through the shell, the checker can see the size of the air cell, too. The smaller the air cell, the higher the grade. Eggs are graded AA, A and B. AA is the highest just like an A+ is the highest school grade.

In the past, a candle was held up behind an egg so the checker could see inside the egg without breaking it. Today, eggs move on rollers over a strong light instead of a candle. But grading is still called candling. Another way to check the quality of an egg is to break it out onto a plate. When the egg is broken out of its shell, the checker can see the white and yolk even better. Candling is used most of the time because most eggs are sold in the shell. But, some eggs are randomly broken out as an extra quality test. Here’s what different grade eggs look like when broken out:

Grade AA

The insides of the egg cover a small area. The white is firm. There is a lot of thick white around the yolk and a small amount of thin white. The yolk is round and stands up tall.

Grade A

The insides of the egg cover a medium area. The white is pretty firm. There is a good amount of thick white and a medium amount of thin white. The yolk is round and stands up tall.

Grade B

The insides of the egg cover a very wide area. The white is weak and watery. There is no thick white and the large amount of thin white is spread out in a thin layer. The yolk is large and flat.

Now that you know what the grades look like, which egg grade/s do you think would be better for frying or poaching? Which for hard-cooking? Which for making scrambled eggs, omelets and quiches and for baking?

Have you ever seen a chef’s hat? It’s called a toque (say this like tow with a hard k on the end). A toque is white, stands up tall and has about 100 pleats. Some cooks say that the pleats stand for all the ways you can cook an egg. Can you think of 100 ways to make eggs?

Did you put hard-boiled eggs on your list of ways to cook eggs? Actually, it’s better not to boil eggs. Boiling makes eggs tough and rubbery. If you cook eggs too long or use heat that’s too high, they can also turn green. In hard-boiled eggs, this makes a green ring around the yolk. This is okay to eat, but it doesn’t look very nice. You can make tender eggs with no green ring by cooking more gently. And you can save energy if you don’t leave the heat on for a long time to boil.