Nowadays we tend to think of eggs as a food to be consumed fresh, and they can last days in refrigerators. But how did folks in the Middle Ages preserve them? I know that in China and Southeast Asia they've been making century eggs for, well, centuries - did Europe have a process like that, or what? How widespread was it?
we tend to think of eggs as a food to be consumed fresh, and they can last days in refrigerators.
This is largely a modern American phenomenon due to the fact that American egg producers wash the eggs at a high temperature - and often in chlorine - before they enter the supply chain in order to kill salmonella. It's this washing process which damages the protective membranes of the egg shell and hence means that American eggs require refrigeration. In much of the rest of the world, counter-salmonella focuses on the improvement of sanitary conditions for the hens and vaccination rather than the eggs - in the UK we have the Eggs and Chicks (England) Regulations 2009 for example. Without this washing process, eggs can last for well over a month or more if stored in proper conditions. So to answer your question, a medieval individual who wanted to store eggs would do so in the same way that most of us still do: they'd leave them in a cool, dark cupboard.