Winter in Egypt, 2024 - Shopping for Eggs

We needed eggs a couple of weeks ago and picked up a pack of 30 at the new BIM mini supermarket in the neighborhood.  The eggs weren't visible inside the package and we were quite surprised when we opened them to discover that they were mini-eggs. Linda referred to them as "pigeon eggs". When we looked up the egg sizes of American eggs we discovered a category we didn't know existed. Pee wee eggs are about 35g vs 56/57g for large eggs. These baladi eggs weighed from 33-35g.

  

 

The packaging displayed a very happy hen that laid the eggs.

 

We discovered that these were "baladi eggs."  We're most familiar with the term baladi (sometimes spelled balady) as applied to the traditional round pita-bread found for sale on the streets of our part of town.  Baladi is roughly translated as "folk" or "of the people." Below is baladi bread. When we told various friends that we had accidentally purchased tiny eggs they all exclaimed, "Oh baladi eggs! They are the best." Linda can read the Arabic that says this package is baladi eggs but who ever thought to read what's printed on a package of eggs? We learn many things every year we visit Egypt.

 

In this case, "baladi" indicates eggs from what we would describe as free-range chickens.  Video of some happy Egyptian baladi chickens can be seen here. Needless to say, we used these 30 eggs a lot faster than a normal 30 pack.

I've blogged about the eggs for sale in Cairo previously; see for example, here.

We frequently pick up our eggs at an older convenience store store down the street.  Here is their egg display.

They have small plastic bags nearby that allow one to pick up as many or as few as desired - carry them carefully!  We usually try to pick out particularly clean ones. But it is fun to see feathers on some eggs and chicken sh#* on others.

If we pick up a full flat of 30 from the open egg display, the man working the deli section will wrap them in plastic so that there is less risk of dropping any on the way back to the apartment.

One advantage of the wrapped egg package in larger markets is the presence of a production date / expiration date.  Weigh that against choosing your individual eggs.

Eggs provide another example of the rampant inflation taking place in the food sector here.  The eggs I bought for 2 EGP apiece just two years ago now sell for 5 EGP.  In dollar terms, the price is about the same at around 11 to 12 cents apiece.