Failed the Drop Test

My plastic egg carton containers for transport and storage.
They look sturdy, huh?   The added rubber band is another
lesson learned the hard way.

Egg washes are great on pastries and for glazing pie shell edges.  They are not so hot on the inside of dry bag backpacks.  Yeah… I learned from firsthand experience.

How did this happen?

I was intrigued with the concept of buying unrefrigerated eggs. With the right care, I've heard, they can last weeks unrefrigerated.  In anticipation of the opportunity, I bought two 1-dozen plastic egg carton carriers.  If you’ve carried eggs backpacking – real eggs – not powdered substitutes – you’re familiar with these cartons.

Here in the Caribbean, nearly all the eggs I’ve found are refrigerated -- or very, very expensive.  Recently, I figured, why not use those cartons to worry less about the fragility of my eggs?   Transporting them from the store, them humping them in my backpack on foot and also sometimes by bus, to our dinghy, to our boat, then often shifted repeatedly inside our crowded fridge... well, none of these activities are consistently gentle. Something sturdier than thin styrofoam in a more usuable shape than a 2x6 carton seemed worth a try.

Ahhh, as in many endeavors, the devil’s in the details….

  

Warning to other plastic egg carton users

1. Do not buy larger than medium sized eggs.
2. Do not tightly wedge the egg cartons into a backpack next to a 12 pack of cola cans.
3. Do not drop the wedged backpack, even if it’s just 1 ½ feet onto the linoleum floor of a supermarket bagging shelf. 

These are large… one size up from medium.  They almost fit.
If you look really close, this studier batch still has some
eggs with hairline cracks.  Yeah, I should've taken a photo
of the mess the other carton made, but I was too busy
cleaning it up before it dried or infected our salon
with salmonella.

I would much rather learn from someone else’s school of hard knocks – or in this case – broken eggs.  So, for all those time’s I”ve been lucky enough to do that, this time I’m the last one out… the rotten egg.  So you don’t have to be.

No pastries or pies planned.  Scrambled eggs, anyone?