Recently a TV “news” program showed a new scientific advance—a mess-free way to color Easter eggs.
The reporter—a parent—enthused over the convenience as a saleswoman placed a boiled egg in a holder, poured a liquid color into a mini tank behind it, and automated tiny brushes that made uniform blue lines on the rotating egg. She explained that the gadget offered other colors and patterns.
Neat but boring, I thought. Do kids today really enjoy programmed designs more than individual creativity? Back in the feedsack days, my sisters and I relished blending colors and making each egg distinctive. Have attitudes changed that much?
Coloring eggs highlighted our Easter celebrations. We chose some 15 to 20 eggs from our daily gathering to clean and boil, bought a rainbow of colors (in powdered packets, if I remember correctly) to supplement whatever food colors were on hand, and prepared our colors in old cups arranged on the kitchen table. We dipped the eggs into the cups with fingers, spoons, or tongs, often using several dips to vary the colors and designs. Blue, pink, yellow, and green dominated.
The whole process was very, very messy, a rare indulgence in my mother’s kitchen.
About the only eggs emerging with only one color were those on which we drew or wrote our names with a (wax?) marker that the coloring didn’t penetrate.
Early Easter morning my mother played bunny, hiding the eggs in the yard for us to hunt and place in our cherished dimestore baskets. As we got older and the economy improved, she added small chocolate eggs covered in bright paper. If wet weather prevented an outdoor hunt, she hid the eggs in the house. Either way, we competed to find the most edible treasures.
We all loved to eat the chocolate eggs. Only I relished the boiled ones, so those lasted a couple of days. I took mine to school for lunch.
The last Easter egg hunt that I remember on the farm occurred when my nieces and nephews were young. I did the hiding. My sisters enjoyed the hunting more than their kids did.
This year I’ve colored no eggs and won’t hide or hunt any, but I’ll never forget how much we enjoyed messing with Easter eggs.
—Carolyn Mulford