Week Ten – Pickled Eggs

The only time I’ve ever seen pickled eggs is on the counter in fish & chip shops.  Unappetizingly, they hang lifelessly in an off-brown solution in a large jar and, until now, I had never considered eating them.  They just don’t look particularly tasty.  But now, in times where I am desperately trying to find foods I haven’t eaten before, they have become a very real consideration.

They are apparently good old fashioned British fare and have been traditionally popular in chippies and pubs across the land.

Pickled Eggs: Not to be confused with egg in a pickle

In medieval times, food going off was a significant problem.  To combat this, a lot of food was pickled in order to preserve it.  Chickens only laid eggs for part of the year, so if you wanted an egg for your breakfast in December, you had to hard boil it and shove it in a jar of vinegar.

I have discovered that the Guinness World Records website has a section where people can attempt to beat world records – and eating three pickled eggs in the quickest time is one of the challenges.  Basically, the idea is that you film yourself attempting to break a record – most of them appear to be based around speedy eating – and the world can then repeatedly watch you fail dismally, whilst dribbling a lot and then vomiting the record attempt back over your living room carpet.

Well, I was determined to make sure this was not going to happen to me – I was going to do it in the kitchen… Of someone else’s house!

Before I undertook my (likely to be futile) record attempt, I thought I’d have a quick laugh at other people giving the challenges a go…  No-one had attempted the pickled egg one, so I watched a Canadian speed-eating a banana and choc chip muffin without using his hands and several people almost drowning trying to drink 500ml of water as quickly as they could.  I also tried to watch a man eat as many marshmallows in a minute as he could, but he had removed the video – I guess he wasn’t very good…  Or has recently got a girlfriend and wanted to hide one of his hobbies from her.

Right, so what was I up against?

According to the stats, ‘the fastest time to eat three pickled eggs is 52.60 seconds and was achieved by Kevin Hayes (UK), at Saltburn Farmers’ Market in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, UK, on 8 September 2012’.

Having never considered the challenge of speed eating eggs before, I wasn’t sure if seven and a half seconds shy of a minute was a good time or not.  Maybe Kevin’s the only person who has eaten three pickled eggs in one sitting whilst holding a stopwatch?

I could give it a go and see what happened…  No harm in that.

So, what are the rules?

Here’s Norris McWhirter with the official regulations for the challenge: –

“Hello, I’m Norris McWhirter and here are the official regulations for the challenge: –

1. Standard size, commercially available hard boiled hens’ eggs which have been preserved by pickling should be used for this challenge. Packaging for the eggs must be shown in your video.
2. Before the attempt the three pickled eggs must be placed on a plate in front of the challenger – he/she may not touch the eggs before the start of the attempt.
3. The challenger must eat the three eggs one after another; showing his/her mouth to be empty before starting to eat the next egg.
4. If the mouth was not completely empty before the next egg is eaten the attempt is invalid.
5. Drinking is not permitted during the attempt
6. Time stops when the claimant has eaten all three eggs and shows his/her mouth is empty.
7. As with all consumption record challenges, we strongly recommend you do not attempt this multiple times in one day

Good luck, and remember, Guinness World Records Ltd is not liable for any damage caused to your carpet during your participation in this challenge.”

And here is where you can find out how I got on…

http://challengers.guinnessworldrecords.com/challenges/223-fastest-time-to-eat-three-pickled-eggs

And so ends another week where I broke another food virginity.  I didn’t quite manage to become a world record holder, but I did manage to top the leader board (subject to verification) on the Guinness World Records Challenge website – Mostly owing to me being the only person to attempt the challenge.

Maybe you could try to beat my time.  Go on, I challenge you… !