Sunday 25 November 2007

EGGSCELLENCE

I decided to take a photograph of a box of organic eggs I bought at my local branch of the Co-operative and which were so fresh that they actually came with a couple of authentic, organic feathers...

Fresh from the coop to the Co-op!


I looked up to see Who'd written What about Eggs and found that Henry James (with his usual verbosity) observed:
I had an excellent repast -- the best repast possible -- which consisted simply of boiled eggs and bread and butter. It was the quality of these simple ingredients that made the occasion memorable. The eggs were so good that I am ashamed to say how many of them I consumed...

It might seem that an egg which has succeeded in being fresh has done all that can be reasonably expected of it.
While Frank McCourt in his novel Angela's Ashes put it rather more succinctly:
Oh, God above, if heaven has a taste it must be an egg with butter and salt!

Image: Brian Sibley, © 2007

9 comments:

SharonM said...

And I used to think that homemade egg and chips was one of the tastiest of meals - absolutely eggcellent (provided the eggs weren't overcooked and - as the Americans put it - sunny side up.

Boll Weavil said...

As a salutory lesson to over-egging the praise, remember the famine-struck land of Pogril in the Hitch-Hikers Guide.For certain reasons, not easily explained, a large quantity of lightly-fried eggs materialised there just after the entire population (bar one) had died of starvation. The survivor, having endured the ravages of hunger, died a few weeks later - of cholestrol poisoning.

Brian Sibley said...

Wasn't Edwina Currie, MP for Pogril??

SharonM said...

If Pogril is in Derbyshire then probably 'yes'. I've just attended a talk Edwina was giving a couple of nights ago and someone got her to sign an egg box to be auctioned for charity.

Brian Sibley said...

What a good egg!

Incidentally, I've always liked the fact that in the Aardman animated feature, CHICKEN RUN, the only hen that goes to the chopping-block is called 'Edwina'!

It was, of course, a joke solely for the Brits and must have gone right over the Americans' heads...

For the benefit of anyone (in the USA or anywhere else outside this Sceptred Isle) Edwina Currie was a British Member of Parliament from 1983-1997.

In 1986, she became a Junior Health Minister, but was forced to resign in 1988 after she issued a warning about salmonella in British eggs. Her claim, that "most of the egg production in this country, sadly, is now affected with salmonella," sparked outrage among farmers and egg producers, and caused egg sales in the country to plummet.

Anonymous said...

.... aaaahhh, salmonella and eggs, I remember know.... because, perhaps more of 50%, of the eggs that british people eat are from Spain, and time ago there was a "little crisis" with the spanish eggs and the salmonella... Well, that`s what some british authorities said....:(


I must say: a wonderful idea that of the co-operatives, good for the british.

Brian Sibley said...

GILL comments...

When in childhood we were what my Scots mother would describe as "peely wally", we were given "Cathie eggs" ('Cathie' after my sister who adored them).

Soft boiled eggs taken out of their shells and mashed in a cup over soft pieces of bread and butter. Oh joy!

Worth being peely wally for really.......

Brian Sibley said...

Mmmmmm! Might give that a try...

Ryan Rasmussen said...

The scribes have hit the mark! I find it hard to praise too highly those organic eggs with their beautiful near-orange yolks. Yum!