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From: tjt@kobold.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.cooks
Subject: Re: Soft-boiled eggs
Message-ID: <291@kobold.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Apr-84 14:01:10 EST
Article-I.D.: kobold.291
Posted: Mon Apr  9 14:01:10 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Apr-84 07:26:10 EST
References: <877@seismo.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Masscomp, Westford, MA
Lines: 59

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 x275