Eggs of contention

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Many things can divide a household. In mine, it is boiled eggs. Who would have thought such a simple food item could cause such consternation at the breakfast table? 


Before it even gets to the table, the divide is evident: How do you prick the egg to stop it from splitting open in the boiling water? I favour the little gadget designed especially for that task; Val prefers the rogue method of firmly holding the raw egg and pricking it carefully — oh so carefully — with a sharp knife. I look on in horror. 

Once cooked (for how long, you ask? Too tricky a question to answer here) the egg is put into a pretty egg cup and, if I don’t trust the cooking time (see parenthetic comment  above), kept warm for continued cooking with a charming Laura Ashley egg cozy, purpose made. Those Brits know how to treat their eggs. 


Now comes the real challenge: opening the egg. 


I tend to slash mine, sometimes hitting the yolk that then drips down the egg cup. Quelle horreur. Val’s head is in her hands at this stage. She never hits the yolk, because she always remembers to put the big end down into the cup. I can never remember that fine point. Val opens her egg with a deliberate sawing action that gives enough of an opening for her to then carefully pry up and off the top. No wasted yolk for Madam Superior of the Ovum.


We both have toast with our eggs, but mine is cold-buttered à la Brit, while Val’s is hot-buttered à l’Americaine. Another divide. 


Lest you think the eating of a boiled egg is such a minor matter as to be unworthy of a blog post, do a quick Google search: You’ll get about 91 million hits! But for me, the reason it is a topic worth contemplation is the memory I have of my landlady on Cape Cod serving me boiled eggs for breakfast — without an egg cup. I literally did not know how to proceed. Only years later, when I met Val, did I learn that she, herself, was raised in an egg-cupless house. Her dad would take the egg in his hand, cut it open and scoop out the contents into a little glass dish. Back on Cape Cod, I had no idea how to proceed. Asking the landlady for help merely cemented her opinion of me as an odd character who had landed in her rented room, fortunately for only the summer. 


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A Post a Day in May No. 5: For the past two years, I have posted something to this blog every single day in May. This year, I hope to do it again. 


Photo by Krisztina Papp on Unsplash 

Comments

  1. AnnMay 5, 2021 at 5:11 AM

    Here I was, up at dawn and grumpy, and this turns up in my mail to cheer me on towards morning!

    Boiled eggs aren't a household issue here. One of us eats only hard boiled, which means no egg cup is involved. And I can eat a soft boiled one in a cup or in a dish. However, when I packed up the kitchen for the renovation five years ago, the egg cups got lost. So much for that.

    I like poached better anyway, and Julie thinks a good poached egg is perfection. Problem solved.

    PS Toast must be buttered when hot. Period.

    ReplyDelete
  2. danielle-momoMay 5, 2021 at 6:57 AM

    You made me smile.
    I can’t see myself eating from an egg cup. I don’t own one and have never eaten from one even while travelling.
    I don’t prick my egg before boiling and it very rarely breaks while boiling.
    I cook two at a time: the first, just long enough to be soft and to eat immediately. The second is left in the cauldron to become a hard egg that I’ll later use in a sandwich or a salad.

    Like Ann, I like poached egg but I don’t master the cooking.

    I like my butter at room temperature. It doesn’t cool my toast.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Amanda Le RougetelMay 5, 2021 at 7:00 AM

    Your comments, Ann and Danielle, are fascinating to me. How we eat our eggs is reflective of our culture, isn't it -- both at our home level and also at our national level. So fun to learn!

    ReplyDelete

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