See a curious account of the medicinal properties of eggs in Pliny. (H. N. xxix. 3.)
Rhases recommends to eat eggs in a soft state, with pepper and marjoram. (Cont. xxxiii.) He says that the best eggs are those of the hen and partridge, and next to them those of the duck. Those of geese, he says, should not be eaten. (Ad Mansor. iii, 13.)
The ancients preserved their eggs in the flour of beans, chaff, or bran. (Pliny, H. N. x, 61; Columella, viii, 6; Varro, De Re Rustica, iii, 9.) Pliny mentions that, if an egg be macerated in vinegar, it will become so soft that it may be drawn through a ring without breaking. Harduin says that he had verified the truth of this fact by experiment.
Horace affirms that eggs of an oblong shape are the best:
“Longa quibus facies ovis erit, illa memento
Ut succi melioris et ut magis alma rotundis
Ponere.”
(Sat. ii, 4.)
We have here adopted the emendation of Bentley. The commentator Acron, however, read alba, but took it in the same sense as alma.
The ancients used to begin their banquets with eggs, and hence the expression “ab ovo ad malum;” that is to say, from beginning to end of a banquet.