You can have soft or eggs pretty much everywhere on the planet, but you cannot make them at the highest point on Earth above sea level. This might not be a pressing concern of yours, but the laws behind this fact affect the preparation of both food and drinks in many places around the world. There’s no way around those laws, because in this house and in this universe we obey the laws of thermodynamics – and you never bet against thermodynamics.
So what’s got against eggs? Well, the problem here is the atmospheric pressure. At sea level, water boils at 100°C (or 212°F). That is the boiling point – but the boiling point is not a point at all. When subjected to varying pressures, the point is a line. The higher you are above sea level, the necessary to bring water to a boil.
You can use a to work out the exact boiling point at your location, but as a handy approximation, for every 300 meters (990 feet) of elevation the boiling temperature drops by 1°C (or 1.8°F). The town of La Rinconada is the in the world at an altitude of about 5,052 meters (16,600 feet). There, the water boils at 82.8°C (or 181°F). Still good enough for eggs but that’s below the ideal temperature – although you can still make it.
The top of mount Everest is significantly higher than La Rinconada. It is 8,849 meters (29,031 feet) above sea-level, with about one-third of the atmospheric pressure. Consequently, the boiling temperature for water up there drops to 68°C (or 154°F). This is still hot enough to cause severe burns, but it is no longer hot enough to cook an egg completely.
Both the and yolk are made of different substances, and the proteins coagulate at . The white is made of up to 54 percent ovalbumin and that doesn’t coagulate until 80°C (176°F), the yolk needs at least 70°C (158°F) to solidify. The temperature of the boiling water won’t be enough to give you a nice boiled egg.
If you are on top of mount Everest and you are really desperate for a boiled egg, the only solution is to bow down to thermodynamics and use a pressure cooker. That cooking method will raise the boiling point by virtue of increasing the pressure inside the cooker. As we said, you can’t win against thermodynamics – you can only do as it says.
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