Opinion – Gross Kitchen: A world without spaghetti carbonara

I came back from the market with a dozen eggs – a dozen is a way of saying it because, at least in the west zone of São Paulo, eggs are sold by the dozen of ten.

Anyway, I bought a box of free-range eggs (the agreement error is an offer from the granger consortium) and I intended to fry them. I broke the first one: rotten. Also the second and third. On the fourth rotten egg, I decided to eat something else.

Then I went to read Folha and learned that, in the United States and Europe, there is a shortage of eggs.

The causes of shortages, among many, are an epidemic of avian flu and the application of laws for the welfare of laying hens. Many animals died, many others produce less and at higher costs. The price of soared and the egg disappeared from the square.

Further on, it is read that there is no risk of similar scarcity in Brazil. I thought with my rotten eggs: that was the only thing missing. If the crisis made the egg the new steak, what could the new egg be? The pea?

Imagine what the world would look like without eggs.

Without minimizing the suffering of farm chickens, the disappearance of eggs would be a catastrophe in gastronomy. Eggs go into every kind of food, as far as we hardly suspect.

Without eggs, all Portuguese confectionery would simply disappear. Pastel de nata, bacon from heaven, queijada, pillow from Sintra, siricaia, in all sweets in Portugal there is an egg. The Portuguese would need to invent a new dessert based, I don’t know, on codfish.

Incidentally, the Portuguese pizza would also cease to exist without the boiled eggs to compose with the ham, onion and olive.

In Italy, a victim of the egg apocalypse would be spaghetti carbonara – made with pork, cheese and egg yolks. Without carbonara, a crowd of Instagram foodies would be adrift like scammer patriots.

But the end of the carbonara would only represent a tip of the disaster in Italian cuisine. Almost all fresh pasta is made with eggs. Goodbye, lasagna. It was nice meeting you, Panettone. Until never again, tiramisu.

The extinction of eggs would also leave a trail of devastation in classic French cuisine. The egg is a protagonist or a supporting character in crepes, quenelles, soufflés, quiches, pastry cream, hollandaise, béarnaise sauces and, very importantly, mayonnaise.

Brazilians would lose many of their typical dishes, from quindim to virado à paulista, from cornmeal cake to cheese bread. The bartender would need to learn to live without bolovo. The marombeiro would have to rethink life in a world without egg white omelettes – unless the extermination of eggs was restricted to yolks.

Fortunately, this macabre scenario only exists in my sick fantasy — and in California, where people have been skipping breakfast for lack of something to eat with bacon.

Around here, eggs just get more expensive every week. By the way, I need to go back to the market to get my bad egg money back. Or would it be rotten eggs?

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