To dye for

COTEAU — Who wants to dye Easter eggs? Anyone who is still a child at heart, said Oliver Trahan.Trahan and several of his neighbors on Livingston Road in Coteau got together for an Easter egg dye and hunt event on Sunday. The neighborhood usually participates in an Easter egg hunt sponsored by the Iberia Parish Recreation Department in Coteau Park, but this year’s event was rained-out.

“We decided to dye some eggs for Easter with some of our friends,” Trahan said. “The kids love it, and it’s fun for us, too.”

The group set up a table under a tree and passed spoons, dippers and decorations around to each other as they participated in a time honored tradition.

According to holidays.net Web site, Easter eggs were originally painted with bright colors to represent sunlight and spring. The painted eggs were used in Easter egg rolling contests or give as gifts. At one point in time, the Web site reported, the eggs were colored and etched with designs and exchanged by lovers and romantic admirers, similar to valentines.

Different cultures have developed unique ways of decorating Easter eggs. In Greece, eggs are dyed a crimson color and exchanged, the color in honor of the blood of Christ.

Austrian artists fasten ferns and tiny plants around the eggs before boiling, creating design patterns in striking white patterns.

Mandy G. Armentor, associate extension agent in Vermilion Parish Extension Office of the LSU AgCenter said in a press release eggs supply high-quality protein and are an excellent source of minerals and vitamins with a calorie count of 80. Eggs are high in cholesterol, 213 milligrams in one large egg, but are low in saturated fat.

Armentor suggests a more healthful than traditional way to use Easter eggs. She recommends preparing an egg salad with mostly the whites. The ration should be three egg whites to one yolk, instead of one yolk per one white. Adding plenty of diced celery or green pepper and using a fat-free or reduced-fat mayonnaise will create an appetizing meal while keeping it healthy. Information from the American Heart Association recommends that individuals consume fewer than three egg yolks per week.

Egg safety is a concern as well when dyeing and hunting for Easter eggs. Boiled eggs spoil faster than uncooked eggs, according to Armentor’s press release.

The egg’s protective coating is washed away in the cooking process which may allow bacteria to enter and contaminate the eggs.

Armentor recommends individuals working with eggs should wash their hands before handling eggs at every stp of the process, including cooking, cooling and dyeing.

Yolanda Wells said while watching her children and their friends having so much fun around the egg-dyeing table how much it reminded her of her childhood.

“We always dyed eggs for Easter,” Wells said. “We used all kinds of kits for dyeing, like the sparkle eggs.”

Oliver Trahan said he learned a few new ways to decorate Easter eggs during this get together. Dipping the eggs in oil before dyeing, he said, will create a marbleized effect on the Easter egg. Another tip he learned was to soak the cooked egg in tea before dyeing to make a darker color.

Cassie Bartholomew, one of the neighbors helping out with the egg-dyeing, created an impromptu Easter egg hunt after all the eggs were dyed.

She counted down from 10 while all the neighborhood children had their backs to the yard filled with the colored Easter eggs they had just completed.

Kylee Colson, 7, decided to keep the eggs she dyed out of the Easter egg hunt. She clutched them tightly as she began to run toward the other eggs with the others.

Shantell Trahan, another mom watching the fun, suggested the neighbors make this an annual event.

“We could even have it at the church,” Shantell Trahan said. (The church is Mount Olive Baptist Church No. 1 near their neighborhood.)

“We can call it Ollie’s ‘Love Those Kids’ Easter egg hunt,” one person said, naming after the Oliver “Ollie” Trahan, an adult having as much fun as the children.