I learned one interesting thing from the trial of Keith Owen, phoney egg retailer. Owen has just been convicted for what must be a very tempting crime. He sold eggs to supermarkets claiming they came from free range hens eating proper grain. In fact, of course, they were from battery creatures gorging chemicals. Owen was given three years in prison and forced to return his £3m profits. What I didn't learn, incidentally, was to whom he gave the money. The government, most likely. the supermarkets possibly. Almost certainly not the customers who paid mark-up prices for his eggs believing the originators bore the fripperies, like feathers and beaks, denied to caged hens.
But what I did learn was how the authorities try to prevent scams like Owen's. Every single egg in Britain is apparently stamped with a unique serial number. Every single egg. And if you have the right databases you can track down the farm where each was laid, the conditions, possibly even the actual mother. Looking at the three eggs left in my fridge, the numbers on two are too smudged to be legible. But here we are on the third: 1UK13714-B/B 18Mar. So with a few phone calls I might be able to find out which chicken squeezed this out of her nether regions.
I'm almost tempted to try. To write a letter of thanks, perhaps, if the egg is particularly good. Or one of complaint if it has annoying features like a thick inner skin, pointing out that the art of cooking eggs is a precise one and the slightest deviation can be disastrous. Maybe, though, I should be apologising to the poor hen, free range though she is. After all, when she laid this egg she must have thought she was giving birth to a son or daughter, the next in the new generation of her proud family. When in fact she was just supplying me with lunch. Not even that: part of a lunch. Together with another thwarted attempt at chicken procreation and some noodles, whose own hopes and dreams are unknown.
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