Dyeing Easter Eggs
Eggs have long represented springtime and fertility, in part due to their spherical shape. Spheres and circles have no beginning and no end, and as such often represent the cycle of life, religious studies professor Bruce David Forbes writes in America’s Favorite Holidays.
Decorating eggs is a tradition that dates back at least 2500 years. There seems to be an agreement among historians that the custom got started when Zoroastrians in ancient Persia painted eggs for Nowruz, or the Persian New Year. From Zoroastrians, the tradition was adopted by the early Christians of Mesopotamia, who colored them red to commemorate the blood of Christ shed at his crucifixion.
The habit has stuck to this day among Christians (and non-Christians because dyeing eggs is fun!), and dyed eggs are a part of every Easter basket taken to a church for a blessing.
One of the simplest ways of dyeing eggs is with onion skins. This is how I learned to dye eggs with my grandma. Recently, I came across photo-negative eggs in the book by Špela Vodovc Cook Eat Slovenia. They pair nicely with the onion skin colored eggs, so I include an adaptation of her recipe here.
Recipe for Dyeing Easter Eggs with Onion Skins
Ingredients:
brown eggs
red and yellow onion skins
nylon tights or stockings
1 egg white
scissors
flowers and herbs
rubber bands (optional)
vegetable oil
large pot
Instructions:
Take the eggs out of the fridge about two hours before you start dyeing them (it is important that they are at room temperature when you start cooking them, otherwise they might crack).
Pick flowers and herbs (see the picture below).
- Wipe each egg with egg white and then stick flowers or herbs to it.
- Cut nylon stockings into a size that fits an egg comfortably. Squeeze so that the flower cannot move and bind tightly, either by making a knot or using a rubber band (I made a knot).
- Put water into a pot and add a lot of onion skins. I added them to the bottom of the pot, then eggs on top and then some more onion skins. Add enough water to cover the eggs.
- If you want your eggs to shine, wipe them with some oil.
- Put in a basket and enjoy the view.
Photo-negative Eggs.
Eggs dyed with Onion Skins.
Recipe for Dyeing Photo-Negative Easter Eggs
The recipe is adapted from the following website.
Ingredients:
brown eggs
3 tbsp vinegar
5 tea bags of rose hip tea (I used fruit tea that included rose hip and it also worked ok, but I added 8 tea bags instead of 5)
1/2 tsp salt
nylon tights or stockings
1 egg white
scissors
flowers and herbs
rubber bands (optional)
vegetable oil
large pot
Instructions:
Follow steps 1-4 of the previous recipe.
Carefully lay the eggs into a pot and pour enough water into the pot to cover them. Add salt, vinegar and the contents of the rose hip tea bags.
Carefully lay the eggs into the pot and cook for 10 minutes at medium heat. It will not be visible that anything has changed. To see that it worked, run your finger over the surface of one egg and see if the natural color is peeling off under slight pressure. If yes, remove eggs from water.
Once the eggs are cool, take scissors and cut the stockings. Wipe each egg to remove the flower or herb decorating it.
