Square Eggs

The Square Eggs are a unique type of egg produced by the Square Chickens of Plain Awful.
==Description==
The eggs laid every night by Square Chicken resemble small stone cubes (either gray or brownish in color), going along with all things in Plain Awful being at least somewhat squarish. On top of being easy to stack, the eggs are the most vitamin-filled food in the world — yet they still can be made into any number of egg dishes, such as scrambled, poached, boiled or fried — making them the ideal eggs. When expired, however, they can cause Acute Ptomaine Ptosis of the Ptummy, an ailment wherein the gastric ducts tie themselves into square knots.
===History===
====Origins====
The Square Eggs, along with the birds themselves, originate from the Region of the Mists, a place in Peru, entered through the passes of the Cordillera and the only known place where square chicken survive. According to local Peruvian folklore, no one ever entered the Mists and returned to tell what he saw, though in truth, the centerpiece of the Region of the Mists was Plain Awful, a valley inhabited by a somewhat primitive people who survived off the eggs they harvested in Egg Valley, though they did not know where they came from.
====Rhutt Betler and his Legacy====
In 1863, Rhutt Betler, an American academic with a distinct Southern accent, who ventured into the Region of Mists in 1863. He was hosted for some time by the Tribe, and shared some culture with them, but eventually absconded with some square eggs; Betler lost his way in the mists, and, by the time he exited the Region of Mists in 1868, he was half-dead and near crazy from exhaustion. The Old Vicuna Hunter's father tried to take care of him, but the professor soon died. The vicuna hunter took some of the square eggs to a padre in Cuzco, but kept some at home, which his son saw and felt.
In some unknown fashion (the records of the eggs' obtention were lost in the great Chicago fire), possibly involving the ghost of Rhutt Betler whom a young Scrooge McDuck encountered in 1882, still trying to find a sponsor for another expedition to Plain Awful, a few Square Eggs found their way to the Duckburg Museum by the late 1940's, where, due to the lack of paperwork, they were misidentified as square rocks of unknown origin.
====The Square Eggs in the 20th Century====
Around 1949, as Duckburg Museum janitor Donald Duck was cleaning the supposed “square stones”, he dropped one and discovered that it was actually an egg. That discovery startled the scientific world, and led to an expedition in Peru. On top of the broken eggs, and though the Museum still kept a few in its collection, a couple more eggs were lost, used in the making of an experimental omelet. After tasting it, all the scientists planned to take part in the expedition developed acute ptomaine ptosis of the ptummy, and so by elimination Donald and his nephews were ordered to continue the expedition by themselves.
Most of the Peruvian villagers they asked either thought that they were crazy or stupid, while some tried to trick them into buying fake eggs, but the ducks finally came accross an Old Vicuna Hunter who directed them to the Region of the Mists. They stumbled upon an Incan-like wall, and ended up into Plain Awful, where they helped the local tribesmen discover the square chicken. They eventually returned to Duckburg with two square chicken. Unfortunately, it was discovered that both were male, and could thus, not reproduce or produce eggs.
Some time later, Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck became concerned over the two chicken, who seemed very lonely and unhappy with their new environment. They managed to convince Scrooge to organize an expedition to Plain Awful to return them, as long as he could try to strike a deal on the commercial circulation of the eggs with the Awfultonians. Flintheart Glomgold followed Scrooge, hiring the Old Vicuna Hunter, as he hoped to steal the deal off his hands. In the end, neither of the deals worked, and both of them lost their interest in the square eggs.
==Behind the scenes==
The Square Eggs were the macguffins of the iconic 1949 story Lost in the Andes and its sequel Return to Plain Awful.
Carl Barks got the idea of the square eggs from a joke. He had heard of square eggs all of his life just as a joke.
It is shown in Last Christmas that the Eggs, and Plain Awful, also exist in the (the universe of DuckTales 2017), without any obvious differences.
it:Uova quadrate
el:Τετράγωνα Αυγά
fr:Œuf carré
Category:Objects
Category:Artifacts and Treasures