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Egg2 Week (day 6): Egg-in-Cube, 2014

Day 6: Wenjing Huang, Fumihito Arai & Tomohiro Kawahara’s Egg-in-Cube

For the 6th day of Egg2 Week we bring you another square egg. This time, however, the “Egg-in-Cube” is not a consumer product, but an embryonic research tool.

Egg-in-Cube: Design and Fabrication of a Novel Artificial Eggshell with Functionalized SurfaceScientists in Japan developed this cube-shaped “artificial eggshell.” Starting in 2014, they published a series of papers explaining their “novel biomedical platform.”

We initially intended to design a polyhedral-shaped eggshell to most closely mimic the shape of the normal eggshell (Fig. 1 (A)) using a thin membrane surface with oxygen permeability and transparency. However, it is difficult and costly to fabricate such a high-dimensional polyhedron structure. Therefore, we next considered a cube-shaped eggshell (Fig. 1(B)), which is easier to fabricate and whose posture (observation point) can be changed easily.

Egg-in-Cube: Design and Fabrication of a Novel Artificial Eggshell with Functionalized Surface, 2015

Interesting, that they had originally intended to use a higher-order polyhedron, like a dodecahedron. But financial constraints led them to the simpler (and, perhaps, more elegant?) cube-shape solution.

Egg-in-Cube

Clearly, the Egg-in-Cube artificial eggshell is for research, not resale. And yet its structure is superficially similar to some of the commercially proposed “square eggs” that we’ve looked at. Such as David Adams’ 1947 “Eggs Having Artificial Shells” and Lawrence Darrah’s 1956 “Shell-less Egg Carton.”

[Read more…]

Egg2 Week (day 5): Christian Huc’s Apéroeuf

Christian Huc's ApéroeufHuc’s 1988 patent drawing, Ov’Action’s 1989 Trademark, and L’aperoeuf photo, via: Archives nationales du monde du travail (Roubaix)

Day 5: Christian Huc’s Apéroeuf, 1988

The patent drawing in Christian Huc‘s 1989 patent, looks almost exactly like the drawing in David Adams’ 1953 patent. But where Adams drew his horizontal band to represent “sealing tape,” Huc drew his horizontal band to represent egg yolk.

Huc’s process is technically similar to the “long egg.” Long eggs, however were long & cylindrical with a tubular yolk core. (This was so that its slices would resemble those of a natural hard boiled egg.) Huc took a decisive step away that type of simulated naturalism.

Huc’s company (Ov’Action) launched the invention. First in France, with plans to also bring the product to Canada and to the U.S.

For the product’s brandname they trademarked a portmanteau of Apéritif and oeuf (egg): Apéroeuf. [Sometime it was also spelled with a diphthong/ligature as: Apérœuf]

Its publicity, however, centered on the squareness of the product.

Now… there’s a square egg. Cristian Huc, of Ov’ Action Inc., Lieven, France, is looking for North American partners to help market its bite-sized square egg — a fully-cooked, reconstituted hard egg cube, two-thirds of an inch square. The product is designed as an hors d’oeuvre snack and is made up of three layers, with white at the top and bottom and yellow in between. The square egg has a 21-day shelf life and sells in France for $1.50-$2.00 (U.S.) for a package of 24.

Poultry and Egg Market, 1989

A French firm markets a cube egg

The French food company Ov’action announced Tuesday the upcoming sale of “Apéroeuf,” a cube egg about two centimeters in size, formed of two layers of white enclosing a slice of yellow.

Carried out using an exclusive and complex microwave cooking process — developed after three years of study and $2 million in investments — the cube egg has been tested “successfully” in restaurants, according to Ov’action. The “Apéroeuf” range will also include varieties based on vegetables, seafood or meat.

Ov’Action wants to market 2,000 to 3,000 tons of “Apéroeuf” annually and export its products, or its know-how, particularly in Anglo-Saxon countries and in Japan.

La Presse, Montréal, Thursday, November 25, 1989

But, in this case, since Huc’s square eggs were actually being sold—at least in France, I really wanted to find a product photo. This wasn’t easy, but due diligence sometimes pays off…

[Read more…]

Egg2 Week (day 4): Henry Garren’s Square Eggs

Dr. Henry Garren's Square Eggs

Day 4: Henry Garren’s Square Eggs

Dr. Henry Wilburn Garren developed his square egg(s) in 1961, at the Department of Poultry Science of North Carolina State College.

In September 1961, the promotion group got the governor to designate N. C. as the Good Egg State, and, with the help of the college scientists, had hens produce square eggs. This square egg deal got national coverage and the two goals — a personality and national recognition — were met.

American Poultry, 1962

In our two previous posts, college scientists conducted research involving eggs that happened to be rectangular. And we saw how newspapers and magazines made “square eggs” a headline of their stories.

In 1956 Dr. Garren won the “The Poultry Science Association Research Prize” ($100) for his, uh… seminal paper entitled, The Effect of Temperature and Time of Storage on the Fertilizing Capacity of Undiluted Fowl Semen.

Garren clearly had no serious, scientific interest in making “square eggs.” He was simply doing his part to assist North Carolina’s egg industry.

The “North Carolina Egg Marketing Association” correctly surmised that newspapers were goofy about “square egg” stories. And Dr. Garren knew how to produce just such a thing.

How did he do it? First he made a cube shaped “template” of calcium. Then he cracked a (regular) egg and deposited its contents into the cube-shape template. This, he inserted (back?) into the oviduct of the hen. Not so that the hen could re-lay the egg—she couldn’t have. But simply to form an authentic egg shell around the square template. As Dr. Garren explains it, “She’ll put a shell around anything.” (Read more about it, here.)

And, of course, they didn’t just make 1 of these square eggs… [Read more…]

Egg2 Week (day 3): Lawrence Darrah’s Square Eggs

Lawrence Darrah's Square Eggs

Day 3: Lawrence Darrah’s Square Eggs

We actually covered Darrah’s “Shell-less egg carton” once back in 2013. But we’ll revisit him now during Square Eggs of Science & Industry Week.

In some patents, we’ve noticed inventors highlight the “substantially square” aspects of their inventions. In Darrah’s patent, however, he never mentions square or rectangular eggs. Instead, he focus on the “substantially impervious” aspect of his egg re-packaging concept.

Here, as with the square eggs of Gerard Baerends, Life Magazine covered the story. And here again, the publication chose to make the story all about the squareness of the eggs.

“Eggs,” Designer Raymond Loewy once declared, “are the functionally perfect form.” He was talking about egg esthetics. But when it comes to marketing eggs, according to Professor Lawrence Darrah of the New York State College of Agriculture, their form is neither functional nor perfect. To remedy the situation he has devised a way to give eggs a handier square shape. He has done it so successfully that he thinks square eggs will become as familiar as the ovoid variety.

Science Squares the Egg, Life Magazine, April 30, 1956

Of course, Darrah’s idea of improving upon the egg, is pretty much the same idea that David Adams had in 1947. And, indeed, Adams’ 1953 patent US2660530 is among those credited with a citation in Darrah’s 1958 patent US2858224A.

And Life Magazine, was not the only publication to run with the “squareness” of the Darrah’s shell-less eggs concept… [Read more…]

Egg2 Week (day 2): the square eggs of Gerard Baerends

square eggs of Gerard Baerends

Day 2: the square eggs of Gerard Baerends

Gerard Baerends was a Dutch biologist, who conducted a behavioral study of herring gulls in 1951.

Unlike David Adams, Baerends was not interested in “square eggs,” per se. He had made a number of differently shaped “false eggs” to use in his research.

In Baerends’ experiments, two experimenters walked into the colony, which caused the birds to leave their nests. One nest was chosen for study and two of its three eggs were removed. These eggs were replaced by two model eggs. The model eggs were not placed in the nest cup, but were placed instead on the rim of the nest. One of the experimenters then hid in a small portable tent that was set up near the chosen nest, and the other experimenter left the colony. The nest owner soon returned, and the experimenter in the tent could easily observe and record the behavior of the returning bird. Typically, the gull would enter the nest and sit on the one egg. It would then rise, look at the model eggs on the nest rim, retrieve one egg and then retrieve the other.

… The results of these experiments showed that some aspects of the stimulus were not very important for the gull. Shape, for example, had relatively little effect… round, square, oblong, and egg-shaped models were retrieved with about equal frequency.

Jerry A. Hogan The Study of Behavior: Organization Methods and Principles, 2017

Life Magazine ran a feature about Baerends’ gull study in 1955. (Most of these photos are from that issue.)

For their table of contents, Life’s “Science” editor gave the article the factually correct title, Wooden eggs test a herring gull’s instincts. By the end of the article, however, the magazine shifted its focus and it became all about the square egg…

An Irresistible Square Egg

… Professor Baerends made the wooden egg experiment this year on Terschelling Island in the North Sea. His experiments have taught him other things about herring gulls. To fool them he made eggs of different shapes and colors… and placed some of them on the edge of a nest and waited to see which the gull would drag in. Herring gulls, he found, are usually bored by plain eggs. But if the egg is speckled, the bird will try to hatch it, even when it is square (next page).

Yes. Clearly, square eggs are irresistible. To magazine editors, at least.

Baerends was a professor at the University of Groningen. And so the university’s museum now holds Baerends’ eggs in its collection.

[Read more…]

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