Eggs led to family history search

I never realized that a pickled egg could be a piece of the puzzle. I don’t remember eating them as a child, but then again, there were a lot of things I wouldn’t eat back then so that doesn’t mean they weren’t around.
The question came out of the blue the other night. The voice on the other end of the telephone line was boisterous and cheerful. Ann, one of my mother’s cousins, called me to ask if pickled eggs originated with my great-grandmother, Mary. As Mary died the year before I was born, I was at a loss as to why Ann asked me. Then she said I was the family historian, so I should know.
That was news to me. I thought one of her other cousins, Richard, was the family historian. I had gotten much of my genealogical information from him.
Then I added to it by asking lots of questions of other relatives. I spent many hours on the internet, searching through census records and the occasional on-line obituary. I put all the information together in a file on my computer and stored hard copies in a notebook with originals in a bulging folder.
I guess that could qualify me as a historian. I find that ironic as I have always considered history, as it was taught in school, to be dry, uninteresting and irrelevant. Yet, any additional tidbit of information about the family will send me on another giddy search to know these people who make up my past.
Back to the eggs. I told her that pickled eggs were very common around here, but that I didn’t know if they were a staple at Mary’s house. She told me that her mother used to make them but nobody in Texas, where she lives, had ever heard of them. She was trying to get someone to make them for Easter.
Pickled eggs came into being as a way to preserve eggs without refrigeration. Long ago food was salted, brined, dried or smoked in order to keep it from spoiling. The most common story of the origin of this treat is that pickled eggs were most likely brought to America by early German immigrants. They were a popular food of the Hessian mercenaries fighting against the Colonials during the Revolutionary War. Lots of early recipes come from the Pennsylvania Dutch. There are also references to pickled eggs being an Amish treat.
I told Ann that grocery stores and meat markets in this area all carried the purple-tinged eggs and beets. There are other types of pickled eggs without beets, but in my mind the two are tightly linked. In my search, I found recipes for regular pickled eggs that remain white, something called mustard eggs, and Chinese hundred-year eggs which sound awful but are considered the ultimate delicacy by some.
My mother said that her mom often made pickled beets and that they were delicious. Then she went on to tell me about the time her Aunt Anne shared a side of beef. Her mom, my grandmother, canned the meat, and it was even more delicious after having been canned. I didn’t even know that Aunt Anne lived on a farm so that was yet another tiny piece of the puzzle of my past.
Mom didn’t remember anything about pickled eggs. My cousin ate pickled eggs as a child but didn’t think they were any kind of family recipe. Ann’s cousin, Richard, told me that his mother made pickled eggs often, but that he wasn’t fond of eggs in any form and that he didn’t remember his grandmother making them.
My husband said they were quite common in Chicago, where he grew up.
I have concluded that purple pickled eggs are a regional favorite and bear no relation to our family history. In the search to find this out, I learned a tidbit about another Anne, heard a story about canned beef, and learned that a simple question about eggs can open a conversation about the past.[[In-content Ad]]