An ostrich egg is the largest egg of any living bird — a single one weighs about as much as two dozen hen's eggs, with a thick, cream-coloured, faintly pitted shell strong enough to stand on. Inside sits an enormous pool of pale-gold yolk and translucent white with a flavour much like a hen's egg but a little richer and blander, its sheer scale making it a novelty centrepiece in the West and, more importantly, a staple protein and a carved ornamental shell across Africa's history.