flinn@seismo.UUCP (E. A. Flinn) (04/08/84)
Few articles of food bring out idiosyncrasies and compulsions the way that soft-boiled eggs do. Americans aren't comfortable with soft-boiled eggs - one rarely sees them in this country. Worcester sells little porcelain containers that are supposed to be used to cook the eggs, presumably by breaking the egg into the container and putting the whole thing in boiling water, but I've never seen one of these being used, and Worcester may simply have been misinformed on customs over on this side. The only times I've seen soft-boiled eggs eaten in America, the egg was broken into a cup and the resulting mess eaten with a spoon. Awful. There appear to be several British schools of thought on how to eat soft-boiled eggs, which differ mainly in how one starts: School #1 starts by going bippety-bap all over the top of the egg with the bowl of a spoon, and then prying the shattered part off. School #2 whacks the egg about half an inch down from the top with the edge of the spoon, all the way round. This limits the shattered part to a narrow zone, and the cap is easier to get off; one doesn't have to pick out bits of eggshell quite so much. School #3 whacks the side of the egg with a knife instead of a spoon, through just enough of an angle to get the point of the knife in. The knife is rammed firmly across the egg and out the other side, making a nice one-piece cap with hardly any bits of eggshell at all. I believe, but can't prove, that all three schools put the big end of the egg upward in the egg cup. British egg cups are nice and big, but oriental imports are too small to get the egg in properly. My own egg cup is left over from a Beatrix Potter child's set, and shows Peter Rabbit in the watering can. However the egg is opened, the white in the cap is eaten first (this is ingrained in British children, along with washing even with cold water and playing a straight bat). Then the rest of the egg, with toast buttered cold instead of hot, with Marmite (not Vegemite).
trb@masscomp.UUCP (04/09/84)
seismo!flinn claims that Americans aren't comfortable with soft-boiled eggs. Truth is, Americans aren't comfortable with anything. Morons. Anyway. My grandma was into soft-boiled eggs, and her egg cups weren't from Worcester, they were Hungarian, and they had mother-of-pearlescent white glaze on the porcelain, and pictures of Hungarian cities, as I recall. The eggs fit well. We always used Flinn's school #1 method of entry, that is, going bippety-bap on the top with your spoon. (Actually, my grandma never went bippety-bap on anything, she went zetz, but that's for another note.) Yes, it makes shards, but they are all connected to the membrane under the shell, so it's no great problem. You broke the sucker open on top, sprinkled in a little salt, and scooped away with your teaspoon, ending up with a hollow shell. The egg should be cooked so that the white is not liquid and the yolk is not solid. Thank God that the yolk sits in the middle of the white, else soft-boiled eggs would be a moby lossage. He must exist. And you'd better make sure not to leave your spoon sitting around on the table afterwards, cuz the silver plating would turn black from the sulfur in the egg. Andy Tannenbaum Masscomp Inc Westford MA (617) 692-6200 x274
tjt@kobold.UUCP (04/09/84)
seismo!flinn tells us: "I believe, but can't prove, that all three
schools put the big end of the egg upward in the egg cup."
Sir, countries have gone to war over this issue:
Which mighty Powers have, as I was going to tell you,
been engaged in a most obstinate War for six and thirty
Moons past. It began upon the following Occasion. It
is allowed on all Hands, that the primitive Way of
breaking Eggs before we eat them, was upon the larger
End: But his present Majesty's Grandfather, while he
was a Boy, going to eat an Egg, and breaking it
according to the ancient Practice, happened to cut one
of his Fingers. Whereupon the Emperor his Father,
published an Edict, commanding all his Subjects, upon
great Penalties, to break the smaller End of their
Eggs. The People so highly resented this Law, that our
Histories tell us, there have been six Rebellions
raised on that Account; wherein one Emperor lost his
Life, and another his Crown. These civil Commotions
were constantly fomented by the Monarchs of Blefuscu;
and when they were quelled, the Exiles always fled for
Refuge to that Empire. It is computed, that eleven
Thousand Persons have, at several Times, suffered
Death, rather than submit to break their Eggs at the
smaller End.
The quotation is from "Gulliver's Travels" by Jonathan Swift, and seems
to support Mr. Flinn's school #3.
A little later on:
For the Words are these; *That all true Believers shall
break their Eggs at the convenient End*: and which is
the convenient End, seems, in my humble Opinion, to be
left to every Man's Conscience, or at least in the
Power of the chief Magistrate to determine.
Further, my wife (born and bred in Britain) is a confirmed
little-endian (of school #3; she concedes that some people "break their
heads", but cutting eggs with a spoon is an unheard-of technique): we
had boiled eggs recently and my wife was alarmed when I put my egg in
the egg cup with the big side up.
The cap is always eaten first (even I did this instinctively, as it
were), although my wife claims that it gets tough and awful if you
don't eat it right away.
I don't know about toast buttered cold instead of hot, but my wife
certainly concurs that Marmite it to be preferred over Vegemite. Me? I
can't stand either of them!
Finally, try putting some butter inside the rest of the egg before
eating it: probably unhealthy, but delicious nevertheless.
--
Tom Teixeira, Massachusetts Computer Corporation. Westford MA
...!{ihnp4,harpo,decvax}!masscomp!tjt (617) 692-6200 x275cdanderson@watarts.UUCP (04/10/84)
Uggh, how could one dare to suggest that soft-boiled
eggs are opened with the large end up! Such a statement is
a call to war at the very least |-).
Perhaps we should do a regional study of egg-cooking
habits. About 4 yrs. ago, I was billeting some guests from
N. Carolina and prepared soft-boiled eggs for breakfast. As
I was coming back to the table after going for toast, etc.
I heard a cry of shock and disgust from one of my friends. It
seems that he had never heard of soft-boiled eggs and so, thinking
they were hard, he cracked one on the table and was opening it, only
to have the contents run everywhere. Shock.... Surprise....Disgust!
How eggs-citing,
Cameron
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax}watmath!watarts!cdandersoncak@CS-Arthur (Christopher A Kent) (04/11/84)
I am also a fan of soft-boiled eggs -- my parents were German and Bulgarian, so I'm not your ordinary American, I guess... I always put my eggs in the cup big end down, and beat on the little end. I tend to use a spoon and go around the egg (this was method 2?), then scoop the whole thing off and eat. Since I had a hard time mastering this as a kid, we had a cute little pair of scissors shaped like a chicken with a hole just the right size for taking about the top inch of an egg of in one swell foop. I have noticed similar devices in catalogs such as Williams and Sonoma lately, but they have bunches of little points that come in and pierce the egg, rather than being scissor-like. Marmite? UGH! Butter and honey for me. Lots of salt and pepper on the egg. trb gave a good description of what a soft-boiled egg should look like (3 minutes is usually NOT enough). Cheers, chris
pdbain@wateng.UUCP (Peter Bain) (04/11/84)
Does anyone out there use "dips"? I am referring to pieces of toast ( I prefer it buttered) cut into centimetre-wide strips, and dipped into the yolk and eaten. That was the only way I would eat a boiled egg when I was little. By the way, some people use what my nephew has given the onomatopoeic name of a "spinker". It is a metal cup, about 3/4" in diameter, with a weight attached to it by a u-shaped piece of springy metal. You put the edge of the cup against the egg ( the big end works best, as opposed to egg scissors, where the small end is preferred :-) ), pull the weight back, an let it spring back. the weight drives the edge of the cup into the shell, cracking it in a neat circle. -peter
amigo@iwlc6.UUCP (John Hobson) (04/11/84)
The way that my father (an Englishman) taught me to make soft-boiled eggs is to put the egg(s) in a saucepan filled with COLD water, and put it on the stove over medium to medium-high heat. When the water boils, the egg is ready. This has the advantage that the white will cook before the yolk. After getting the top off, put in a little salt and pepper. Soft-boiled eggs should be served with buttered hot toast, marmalade or jam is optional (Marmite and Vegemite are fit only the Australian lumpenproletariat. I believe that they are both originally byproducts of brewing beer, and hence qualify as industrial waste.) Tea (with or without milk, depending on one's personal taste) is the stuff to drink with soft-boiled eggs. The contraption mentioned in the first article of this series is an egg coddler. John Hobson AT&T Bell Labs--Naperville, IL ihnp4!iwlc6!amigo