Gull egg
Gulls' eggs tend to have speckled shells (which somewhat camouflages them in the landscape),[1] a flavor variously described as fishy or salty that is reminiscent of the birds' marine environment, an especially white or even opalescent albumen when cooked,[2] and almost-red orange yolks.
[19] Toxicologists and public-health agencies recommend that children and pregnant or nursing women avoid eating gull eggs.
[20] Increased egg production by domestic poultry and wild egging have often filled the hungry gap of early spring.
[18] Gull eggs have long been collected in some quantity in the British Isles and are considered to be a seasonal delicacy in Great Britain.
[10] One account has it that in primeval times, the first clutches were all smashed in a day, prompting the gull colony to lay again en masse, so that harvesters could return within a week and be guaranteed of fresh eggs.
"[26] In May 1912, two young men in Fife, Scotland, were charged with illegally possessing seven eider duck (genus Somateria) eggs, in violation of the 1880 Wild Birds' Protection Order (43 & 44 Vict.
[27] Two decades later a letter to a Scottish newspaper described gull egging on a loch; eggs were "lifted from their dangerously placed nests by means of a table spoon attached to a long pole.
[33][34][35] Immediately after the end of World War II, Rupert Baring, 4th Baron Revelstoke sold over 100,000 gull eggs a year to British city dwellers.
[36] Gull egging is now strictly regulated in the United Kingdom, although gull-egg piracy has been documented, including at Holmfirth, West Yorkshire,[37] Poole Harbour, Dorset,[38] and on the Copeland Islands off Northern Ireland.
[2] London restaurants and gentleman's clubs frequently serve gull eggs soft-boiled, seasoned with celery salt or paired with the spring vegetable asparagus.
[50][23][43] Circa 1971, Irston R. Barnes [d], an economist and former chairman of the American Audubon Society, wrote that the taste of London-restaurant gull eggs was unremarkable except for a faintly oily quality.
[53] The Norwegian Food Safety Authority discourages the consumption of gull eggs by children, and women who could become pregnant, due to unsafe levels of toxic compounds including polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) and dioxins.
[9] American herring gull (Larus smithsonianus) eggs were historically collected in the eastern provinces of Canada, sometimes preserved for the remainder of the year in waterglass.
[57] Native Alaskans have long collected the eggs of the glaucous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens) when seasonally available from mid-May to mid-June each year.
"[1] Gull eggs collected on the coast of Alaska may be used in "tricked-out" boxed-cake-mix cakes that are popular in Alaskan communities.
