Transition Culture

25 Feb 2008

How to Peel an Egg in 10 seconds and other Great Reskilling Distractions.

You’re going to hate me for this, your life will never be the same again. Quick ways of peeling eggs may not be at the top of the Great Reskilling agenda, but my entire family has recently become intrigued by a particular approach to egg peeling that has been keeping people busy on YouTube. The story begins with the following film which purports to show a jolly bloke at his kitchen table apparently setting a challenge to the rest of the world by making it look perfectly simple to peel an egg in under 10 seconds by simply taking the ends off and blowing it out of its shell. Clearly not exactly up there with building a cob wall or even mastering the growing of Ruby Chard, but pretty impressive nonetheless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETgWdRfRY2U

He makes it look so simple. Clearly out there in cyberspace hundreds of people saw this film and thought “I’ll try that”. There is a lesson here for aspiring film-makers about making short films that really get people talking… how about making 10 second films on changing lightbulbs or growing garlic in old tins? Anyway, it turns out that for most of those to tried to film themselves doing this seeming simple thing, it wasn’t actually quite so simple.

In the interests of establishing scientifically whether this works or not, using the rigorous approach advocated by fellow blogger Graham Strouts and others, I thought I would do some research starting with a study of the ‘literature’, that is, other films on YouTube of people attempting it. The guy in the clip below tries very hard, but fails to live up to his predecessor, and ends up just peeling the shell off, after nearly rupturing a bloodvessel attempting to blow the egg from the shell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43qarMZyGqw

This next guy (the clip for some reason has no sound) tries to do the same thing, but with more disastrous results. If you visit this man’s house and he offers you boiled eggs, you might be best off to ask for them with the shell still on.

At this point in my careful research, I was starting to think that actually the original film was a trick, and that actually he had the peeled egg in his hand all the time (note you never actually see what is in his left hand), and that it was all a con. Then I came across the Japanese guy below, who actually, eventually, appears to replicate the results of the original experiment.

It would now appear that there is some likelihood that this actually possible. In a way, it had better be, given that the guy in the original film is now responsible for hundreds of people all over the world having to pick bits of eggshell out of their nostrils. The Last Days of Empire are indeed a curious time to be alive. So, true to **Transition Culture**’s being the home of rigorous scientifically verifiable research, we decided, here at Hopkins Towers, to put this to the test, under carefully controlled scientific conditions.

An egg was boiled for what appeared to be the suitable length of time, and was then cooled for a minute, after which my son, Finn, conducted a careful reconstruction of the original exercise.

The results were ghastly. The conclusion of this painstaking research is that although the original experiment may be replicable, boiling your eggs properly in advance is clearly a key requisite for success. Also, I conclude that if your egg is freshly (and properly) boiled, and you make the hole at the bottom big enough it will work, but as for it being the quickest way to peel an egg, I think the guy in the first film has clearly been practicing intensively for many months.

Now, look me in the eye and tell me that first thing you do when you get home today won’t be to put on a pan and start hard boiling some eggs…