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I do some historical cooking out of old cookbooks, like Amelia Simmons' American Cookery or The Art Of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. One thing I've noticed is that these cookbooks use way more egg yolks than whites. For example, I prepared an 18th century feast one night and ended up with 10 leftover egg whites in a jar.

This left me wondering, what did they do with the egg whites? Given the extreme frugality of cooks centuries ago, which included using every scrap of stale bread and every bit of a pig including the oink, I find it impossible to believe that they were wasted. They must have used them for something ... but that's not in the recipes I have. So, questions:

  1. Are the cookbooks we have simply not representative of actual cookery of the 15th-18th century? That is, are they purely posh cookery and as a result did actually waste the egg whites?
  2. Or were the egg whites used for some other purpose that required a lot of whites, maybe even a non-culinary purpose?

Help me solve this mystery. Thanks!

Sean Duggan
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FuzzyChef
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    What comes to my mind first would be pastry. – Johannes_B Jan 02 '21 at 07:14
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    Not quite an answer, but [this history of meringue](https://inmamaskitchen.com/history-of-food/the-origins-and-history-of-meringue/) begins in 17th century England. It may be useful to finding/formulating a complete answer – AMtwo Jan 02 '21 at 09:21
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    I'm sure there were non-culinary uses for whites, though [egg tempera paint](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempera) used just the yolk. You can of course throw an odd half egg into an omelette or scrambled eggs, but that requires using yet more eggs. – Chris H Jan 02 '21 at 16:24
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    Egg whites can be used for fining, i.e. removing impurities, especially bitter acidic impurities, from stocks, which would surely have been required in a large quantities. They can be used in a similar way in brewing: a large country house might perhaps have brewed its own beer. – Mark Wildon Jan 02 '21 at 16:53
  • And like @MarkWildon said for beer, they were also used for wine. – Willeke Jan 02 '21 at 21:54
  • @MarkWildon that's a good point, I'd thought about brewing but not in stock - I assume you don't mind me adding a mention to my answer – Chris H Jan 02 '21 at 22:34
  • Looks like meringues (or similar) were documented from the early 17th century - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meringue#History - 1604 – abligh Jan 02 '21 at 23:12
  • @abligh that's only an answer if you can find evidence of 18th-century Europeans eating lots of merangues. – FuzzyChef Jan 03 '21 at 07:45
  • @FuzzyChef hence it is a comment, not an answer. – abligh Jan 03 '21 at 08:15
  • One thing I'm not clear about from the question is what sort of household we're taking about. Clearly the poor would eat anything, but these books weren't for the poor given the ingredients and the cover price. I've assumed in my answer you could be thinking of anything from a successful farming (for example) family to a grand establishment, but is that right? In particular I've assumed a domestic rather than commercial situation – Chris H Jan 03 '21 at 08:43
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    _"Are the cookbooks we have simply not representative of actual cookery of the 15th-18th century?"_ You seem to expect that a given cookbook answers the question "how to use all of my ingredients", but in reality recipes tend to focus on the outcome (the dish), not the start (the ingredients) and thus answers the question "how do I make this dish?". You can't just assume that because a given set of recipes doesn't include a particular ingredient, that this invariably means that those ingredients must have been thrown out. – Flater Jan 03 '21 at 16:49
  • Personally I often add eggs (or just egg whites) to stews, casseroles, noodles, roasted potatoes, porridge etc. where they are not strictly required. I imagine they just did the same. – Michael Jan 03 '21 at 17:56
  • Chris: given the nature of 16th-18th century cookbooks, we're talking about a large weathy household, with servants. Not necessarily noble, but well-off enough to prepare fancy recipes. – FuzzyChef Jan 04 '21 at 16:33
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    Flater: great, if you can find some 16th-18th century cookbooks that use lots of egg whites, then you have a potential answer. – FuzzyChef Jan 04 '21 at 16:34
  • While I'm sure food waste was very scarce in poorer households, I'm not so convinced that was the case in wealthier ones. Considering the enormous portion sizes some 18th century cookbooks suggest, I suspect more well-off households did waste more food than we might suppose, especially when entertaining guests. But that's more a question for History.SE. – Crazymoomin Jan 05 '21 at 14:54
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    Portion sizes in wealthy households were large partly because the servants got to eat the leftovers. – FuzzyChef Jan 05 '21 at 20:44

4 Answers4

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There were certainly uses for egg whites that didn't involve eating them:

None of these would use a lot, of course. I suspect that most leftover whites would have been used up in cooking. Apart from the obvious meringues of various types, they can be used:

  • As an egg wash on pastry.
  • In place of whole egg before coating something in breadcrumbs
  • Finings are also used in clarifying stock (link is to an alternative method proposed by Heston Blumenthal). Consommé was probably popular around that time; certainly Mrs Beeton, writing in England in the 19th century included several recipes. While she mentioned that clarifying may be required, her consommé recipes don't call for the use of egg. Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1896) does explain this method, though without quantities.
  • Or simply added to many things that use beaten egg (I use up half eggs, either half, in an omelette with whole eggs). In fancy households that could mean servants' food - after all there are many low-effort ways of preparing egg. In a smaller household, everyday meals could use them up, though quickly without refrigeration

They can also be fed to many domestic animals, but given that most animals probably lived on scraps, this is effectively discarding them.

Chris H
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  • Thanks for all of the ideas! For a complete answer, can you provide citations/reasons why any or several of the above uses would have consumed a lot more egg whites in 1796 than they do today? – FuzzyChef Jan 02 '21 at 18:45
  • TBH I don't think the non-culinary uses would have used up huge amounts, at least not within even large domestic establishments. That's why I reckon my last bullet would account for most, but I'll add one point to it – Chris H Jan 02 '21 at 19:20
  • which do you mean by "last bullet"? – FuzzyChef Jan 02 '21 at 21:56
  • @FuzzyChef the last bullet point, starting "or simply added to many things that use beaten egg" – Chris H Jan 02 '21 at 22:29
  • Alternatively they might have just consumed the unused half egg part raw. My grandfather would, at least, do that for breakfast. – Roddy of the Frozen Peas Jan 02 '21 at 23:51
  • Chris: that's possible, but I don't see how it would be provable, unless you can find text somewhere that says "feed the egg whites to the servants". – FuzzyChef Jan 03 '21 at 07:47
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    I've seen text saying that servants at least sometimes had to make do with basic food and leftovers, though not recently. That's probably not specific enough anyway. I might have one more look later, as this leads to some quite interesting reading, but I might have to settle for writing a (hopefully) interesting answer rather than a definitive one. – Chris H Jan 03 '21 at 08:39
  • One of my grand-mothers, who certainly wasn't a servant, would eat raw eggs by putting a pin-hole on one end of the shell, a larger pin-hole in the other, and sucking out the contents through the larger one. Raw egg white is (well, was) not only food for the staff. – simon at rcl Jan 04 '21 at 14:40
  • @simonatrcl of course - raw egg could be consumed by choice or by necessity by a wide range of people. I was assuming the staff or members of a small household as in my answer probably cooked it anyway – Chris H Jan 04 '21 at 14:50
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Another high-volume specialist use for egg white was mortar. Specifically, it was used very frequently in the Middle Ages, in the standard lime and sand mortar: a 2017 study suggests that 6% egg albumen (I assume by weight) provides the strongest mortar.

It was not the only binding agent available to construction, but at least in the Middle East and in Europe, it was one of the most easily procured. Its role is to aerate the mortar, which is essential in preventing thermal contraction damage (ice or heat), and modify its hydration (usually by allowing a lower water-to-cement ratio, increasing strength and water resistance while still being workable).

The use of egg white in construction persisted into the late 19th century in the colonial Philippines. According to one report, this use of egg white in the buildings transformed native Filipino desserts.

Michaelyus
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    That's interesting because unlike my non-culinary suggestions it would use decent quantities - rather a lot in fact, all in one place and at one time, leading to almost the reverse problem – Chris H Jan 04 '21 at 10:28
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    @ChrisH Which is probably why people were looking for uses of egg yolk ;) – Luaan Jan 04 '21 at 14:56
  • Oh, wow, interesting. And even when the medieval church-building spree ended, the habit of making things with egg yolks would have continued, becuase that's the the recipes they had. OK, picking your answer simply because it shows a substantial use of egg whites and you cited all your sources. – FuzzyChef Jan 04 '21 at 18:08
  • They could use the yolks for paint if the glut went the other way - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempera – Tetsujin Jan 04 '21 at 19:47
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    As child I was told that egg white is an important part of the infill for timber framed houses: [wikipedia/timber-framing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_framing#Half-timbering) I found it on the german wikipedia page "for better lasting against weather" but not on the english page... – Allerleirauh Jan 05 '21 at 14:52
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Just the other day I was watching an episode of the Great British Baking Show (sorry, don't remember which one), and they mentioned that egg whites were often used to stiffen clothing, something we'd do with starch today. That left an excess of egg yolks, which was supposed to be the explanation for why so many recipes back then used egg yolks.

Pete Becker
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    Isn’t that how some Portuguese pastry came to be? Using up leftover *yolks* from the whites that went to the monastery’s laundry? – Stephie Jan 02 '21 at 18:08
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    Yep - Pastéis de nata. – Stephie Jan 02 '21 at 18:10
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    Hmmm, intriguing. Got a link for this? – FuzzyChef Jan 02 '21 at 18:43
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    @FuzzyChef https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastel_de_nata – Stephie Jan 02 '21 at 22:33
  • Not for that, for the clothing thing. – FuzzyChef Jan 03 '21 at 07:47
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    @FuzzyChef From the linked Wikipedia article: "At the time, convents and monasteries used large quantities of egg-whites for starching clothes, such as friars and nuns' religious habits." – njuffa Jan 03 '21 at 09:10
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    The bakers made *pastéis de nata* in [Series 8](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_British_Bake_Off_(series_8)#Episode_6:_Pastry), and I have a vague recollection of them doing one of their (now-rare) historical context segments about them. That may be the episode you watched. – Michael Seifert Jan 03 '21 at 19:50
  • Unfortunately, the Wikipedia article doesn't give a source for that information. Thus it's not possible for me to assess whether egg-white-starching was a widespread practice, or limited to the Phillipines. – FuzzyChef Jan 04 '21 at 17:25
  • Starching clothes was also probably a substantial eggwhite using activity, but without citations I decided to pick the answer that involved churches. – FuzzyChef Jan 04 '21 at 18:09
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Apparently divided culinary uses for eggs were not uncommon, in addition to industrial uses for egg whites mentioned by others. (Filipino egg-yolk cookies, among other things, are attributed to the massive use of egg whites in the cement for local churches, and egg whites made medieval cement water-resistant.)

Egg whites were reportedly used to make egg white omelettes and egg white pasta in the first printed cookbook, 1465's De honesta voluptate et valetudine from Italy.

arp
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    My first thought "was make an omelette with them". That's what I'd do if I had ten egg whites and was hungry – Richard Jan 04 '21 at 16:05