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Path: utzoo!decvax!harpo!seismo!flinn
From: flinn@seismo.UUCP (E. A. Flinn)
Newsgroups: net.cooks
Subject: Soft-boiled eggs
Message-ID: <877@seismo.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 8-Apr-84 10:07:01 EST
Article-I.D.: seismo.877
Posted: Sun Apr  8 10:07:01 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Apr-84 20:04:30 EST
Distribution: na
Organization: Center for Seismic Studies, Arlington, VA
Lines: 41

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).