Seven Days to Cure a Yolk

Day one: salt and patience

A yolk buried in a fifty-fifty mix of salt and sugar starts giving up water within the hour. By the end of day one it has the give of a ripe plum. By day three it is amber and stubborn. By day seven it grates.

The variables that actually matter

Humidity beats time. In a damp August week the same yolks take nine days; in a dry February they are done in five. We stopped writing days on the tray and started writing weights. A yolk is ready when it has lost fifty-eight per cent of what it started with.

Everything else — the sugar ratio, the herbs people like to bury in the cure, the wrapping — is decoration. Useful decoration, but decoration.