I keep four delightful chickens in my backyard for their plentiful fresh eggs and overall charm as pets. Here in Portland, Oregon, backyard chickens are somewhat in vogue, and I subscribe to a lively Yahoo! group dedicated to all that is urban chicken farming. (No. We don't eat our chickens. Because I knew you would ask.)

Yesterday, one of its members, Lori, gathered some eggs from her Ameraucana, and boiled them up for breakfast. Imagine her surprise when she peeled one that had cracked in the pan -- the perfect image of the Virgin Mary!

Lori's trying to figure out if she can preserve the egg. In the meantime, let us know what you think: is God once again speaking to us from our food? And is he reminding us how we should all treat our chickens better? I think so.

[Larger version of photo after the jump.]

At Slashfood we're no strangers to images of holy women in food. We've brought you dispatches about everything from visions of the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese to her likeness in chocolate. Here's a new one on me, a cinnamon bun bearing the image of Mother Theresa.

But wait, the plot thickens. Said bun was stolen from Bongo Java a Belmont, Tenn., coffee shop about two years ago. The Nun Bun as it's come to be called had been on display for about 10 years before its theft. Fear not dear reader, the pastry is safe. A letter received by The Tennessean states that the pastry has not fallen victim to foul play.

In other nun-related pastry news, there's a another type of nun bun that's not quite as sacred, but probably no less delicious. "Nonnevotten," or nun's bums, are a sticky syrup-laden Dutch treat. Who knew? [via Boing Boing]

And when I see "we" I'd like to make sure you know I mean other people.

People have been seeing images of Jesus and The Virgin Mary in a lot of food the past several years. We had those grilled cheese sandwiches, someone had some chocolate with a holy image on it, someone else had a cinnamon bun, and I think that someone even had a greasy pan that had a holy figure on the bottom of it. And this is on top of images that have been seen in non-food places, like windows and pieces of wood.

In this L.A. Times piece, we learn that the phenomenon is called "pareidolia," which is the perception of patterns where none are intended. Professor Steve Guthrie says it's a survival instinct, and the way that humans are hard-wired. Of course, this all means nothing to true believers, but it's an interesting article nonetheless, especially during this Christmas season.

People have seen many religious icons in food in the past. The last time it was chocolate-related, it was Jesus in a drip pattern on a hot chocolate cup. This time, the image of the Virgin Mary was discovered in a Fountain Valley, California chocolate factory in the drippings under a large vat. The chocolate, seen here, stands two inches tall and the Bodega Chocolate employees have been praying to it since it was found on Monday.

Maybe the photo isn't doing it justice, but that doesn't look much like the Virgin Mary. It doesn't even look like the grilled cheese Virgin Mary. Supposedly, the layers of chocolate look like robes and there is a small white dot on the statue that could be the head of the baby Jesus.

Is anyone else skeptical? In this picture, it looks like an owl or a falcon more than a person, but maybe seen up close...

Obviously, a headline like that requires a little explanation. Here goes: 11 years ago, Diana Duyser (right) of Ft. Lauderdale made a grilled cheese sandwich and, upon taking her first bite, noticed what she said was a likeness of the Virgin Mary burned into the bread. She quickly put the rest of the sandwich in a plastic container padded with cotton for safe keeping in her freezer. Two years ago, Duyser put the sandwich on eBay, where internet casino and exemplar of good taste GoldenPalace.com snatched it up for $28,000, as well as the frying pan that birthed it, for another $6,000. The holy sandwich has since brought plenty of notoriety to Duyser (as well as Golden Palace), getting her back stage at a Hall and Oates show and elevating her to saint-like status among some South Floridians. Duyser recently had the sandwich tattooed on her chest to "keep it close to her heart," the Miami Herald reported. The Herald page also has a link to local video coverage of the story.

It's that time of year, the time to look back on the stories that made 2005 great. Our countdown begins with God, who appeared several times this year in food.

Grilled cheese, fish sticks and cinnamon buns.

This may sound like the lunch menu at the local high school, but in fact these are all food items on which people claim to have found the likeness of God. Suprisingly, God shows up in mysterious ways on a number of food items.