You can tell how fresh an egg is by the roughness of its shell: the smoother the shell, the older the egg.

The egg is not very fresh if you hear a faint noise when you shake it or if the point of the egg feels warm when placed on your tongue.

On the other hand, if you perform the same tongue test and the point of the egg feels cold, the egg is fresh.

To determine an egg's age
Place it into a salt solution made up of 125 g salt per liter of water.

• An egg laid that day will lie horizontally on the bottom of the container.
• A week-old egg will sit at a steep angle.
• A two-week to one-month old egg will be almost vertical.
• An egg more than a month old will rise to, or above, the surface.

In the kitchen, the egg in all its forms remains an essential part of our everyday diet - from breakfast, where it is served boiled, fried, poached or in omelets, through lunch, to dinner where it enters into all sorts of dishes, from first courses to desserts. 

In China, the most famous eggs are known as "hundred year old eggs" and are one of that country's gastronomical treasures. In the West, it is to two of the greatest Roman gastronomes that we owe numerous recipes and techniques surrounding the egg. Lucullus invented the omelet and the honey omelet. Apicius, in 25 BCE, created a kind of crème caramel by combining milk, honey and beaten eggs that he then cooked over very low heat. He discovered the egg's wondrous ability to thicken a sauce or stew.

Personally, though I don't often use eggs in my cooking, I like their texture and the combinations they allow, as in these simple tasty recipes: 

• Breton-Style Eggs
• Spider Crab Omelet
• Tuna Omelet