how long do fresh eggs last?

[oaklandfoodie]

Is just over a month too long? I want to hard boil them.

[janeer]

You need to know how old your eggs already were when you bought them; there is a coding system that lets you know this. But for any purpose, truly fresh eggs are different from an older egg in taste and cooking properties. There is some information about the date notations here: http://littlecomptonmornings.blogspot...

[Ellen]

Month old and fresh are mutually exclusive terms when it comes to eggs. But you can boil them and make egg salad and not die, unless they smell funny of course.

[davebough]

I remember reading a book a number of years ago about a guy from England who sailed a small boat around the world. He dipped eggs in wax and put them in the bottom of the boat unrefrigerated. They lasted a number of months.
dave

[hotoynoodle]

older eggs indeed are easier to peel once hard-boiled. i have eaten eggs 2 months past their sell-by date and they (and i) were fine.

[Will Owen]

After reading that Americans are almost alone in the world in refrigerating eggs, I've just stopped doing it. A carton seldom lasts us over a week anyway. I did have a few that were over a week old the other day when I was going to make potato salad, and it had been ungodly hot here, so when I put the eggs in water to boil I was watching for floaters. Sure enough, one stuck its butt up sharply, though it wasn't fully floating. I took my trussing needle and bored a hole in the floating end, both to vent any air and to mark it for attention after it was cooked. It was perfectly all right, and it and the rest rewarded my non-refrigeration by being almost ridiculously easy to peel.

[mpalmer6c]

I've kept eggs for over a month. They weren't spoiled,.but the last one I came to was so dried out it looked almost hard-boiled. BTW, in response to another poster, cookbooks I've read say fresh eggs are the hardest to peel; they're easier with age.

[JasmineG]

Agreed -- these will be easy to hard boil. They'll be perfectly safe to eat.

[Anne H]

Yeah, I would definitely use them, but they won't be as fresh and may be a little more annoying to peel. There is usually a "use by" date on the end of the carton. You can also put them in a pot of water; if they "stand up" they are getting old, if they float, toss them out. I am not sure where the line between aesthetics and safety is crossed; I spent a summer in Germany years ago and they kept cool but unrefrigerated eggs for a very long time. Not that I recommend it!

[Betty]

I agree, if the stand up, boil them, if they float, well, I'd toss them, unless I couldn't afford to buy more, in that case I'd have more serious things to deal with than a few eggs.
My sister was recently reminiscing, with some wonder, how our mother would break eggs into large mason jars and carry them with us on vacation for a couple of weeks (usually camping) in the styrofoam cooler in the unairconditioned Rambler. Times have changed!

[goodhealthgourmet]

actually, the older the eggs, the easier they are to peel because the membrane has separated from the shell. it's the fresh ones that come apart in a gazillion impossibly frustrating little bits...