This pub snack is truly British (and you’re going to stink horribly)
If you go to a pub in England, you’ll probably see a large preserving jar full of white spheres sitting among the bottles of whisky and liqueur. What are they? And: do you actually want to order one?
Those white spheres are… pickled eggs. Hard-boiled eggs that bob around in a jar of vinegar for a few days. In England, it’s wildly popular to grab one of these eggs in the pub between a couple of beers. The eggs are hard-boiled, rinsed and peeled, then placed in a jar with vinegar or salt water. Naturally, all kinds of delicious herbs can be added, such as the herbs in a jar of pickles, but a die-hard egg eater doesn’t need any of that.
Free lunch
The tradition of serving those hard-boiled eggs comes from France. Apparently, a surplus of eggs, combined with the obligation to serve something to eat at the bar as well (to prevent excessively drunken behavior), resulted in those jars of hard-boiled eggs. In America, a hard-boiled egg was part of the free lunch people could get in a saloon from 1800 onward. That free lunch was an incentive to get people into the bar. Well, eggs aren’t expensive and pretty much everyone likes a hard-boiled egg, so it was a clever move.
The next morning
And if you think you regret having a shawarma sandwich or a Turkish pizza after a load of beer, you haven’t yet experienced the toxic effects of hard-boiled eggs in a belly full of beer. That sets processes in your intestines in motion that can only inspire deep awe (and revulsion).
