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Comment by zdragnar | Hacker News Reader

That's because federal regulations in the US require that eggs be washed and refrigerated prior to selling at grocery stores. On the one hand, this decreases the risk that the egg will get contaminated if someone cooks an unwashed egg, but it also means that it no longer has the protective coating on the shell that unwashed eggs have.

That said, I don't think there have been egg related deaths since a raw egg eating competition years ago.

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I've been making historic cocktails with uncooked US eggs (either whites or yolks) for the winter season, and have yet to get sick. But sample size me and usually with a decent amount of ethanol.

any recommendations? i do know that whites and soda make for a fun texture

If you can get ahold of pisco, a pisco sour (Peruvian) is a fun classic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisco_Sour

And generally, most of the sour family, and their descendents the fizzes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sour_(cocktail)

Egg whites add a nice... balance and mouthfeel to the cocktail that you don't really get from other ingredients.

For the yolks, flips are the big family (think nog without cream). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_(cocktail)

You can also save the yolks and make zabaione without being wasteful. Heavenly decadent on fresh fruit and easy to whip up after dinner. Also a great wow if you've got leftover champagne, as the carbonation isn't particularly important. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zabaione

I usually split an egg and store the unused portion (whites or yolks) in the fridge 24 hours and use them the next day.

My personal favorite egg white cocktail is the Clover Club, which hasn’t been mentioned yet.

I looked this up before since I was curious if this actually did anything, and apparently the US _does_ have a lower incidence of food poisoning compared to many countries, so perhaps some of these preventative measures taken in the US do help.

I guess it also helps there is a cultural aversion to eating raw food compared to the Europe and Asia.

Unironically, with their health care system couldn't it also be underreporting and not seeing a doctor if you have a mild case of food poisoning where someone in Europe would just go see a doctor?

I remember hearing that the protective coating on unwashed eggs is also where salmonella is most likely to come from as a justification for requiring that the eggs are washed. I don't know how correct that is but it seems to be somewhat commonly believed in the US.

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