One day in the haze of my childhood (I think I was about twelve years old) I was sitting on the worn blue armchair in my grandma's living room curled up with a book. Although the title of the book and the details of it escape me, one incident in it stood out in my young mind. A teacher at a boarding school cracked her egg open at breakfast, only to find inside a shriveled baby chicken. I was horrified, and refused to eat the quiche that my grandma had made for dinner, even though quiche had been one of my favorite dishes (especially the way my grandma made it, with lots of very sharp cheese, and lots of spinach).
For a long time afterwards, maybe even for a few years, I refused to eat eggs that were prepared in any way that revealed their egg-ness. Baked goods with eggs hidden in them, I would eat, but I scorned eggs cooked by themselves, or in quiches, omelets, stir-fries, etc. The texture, the look, the smell of the egg repulsed me.
I don't know when this dislike came to and end. It wasn't a dramatic or memorable ending, not like the beginning of my egg revulsion. It wasn't spurred on, as far as I can remember, by any fantastically cooked egg dishes, something fancy and magical that removed my fears. My first sojourn back into the egg world, I am pretty sure, was nothing swankier than a lightly scrambled egg on some seriously buttered toast. And I was back.
During my senior year of high school my mother took her last chance to truly baby her rapidly maturing first-born, and would bring scrambled eggs and toast slathered with butter to my room while I got ready for school in the morning (a long and involved process, requiring various hair implements, makeup and a pile of clothes). I piled the soft eggs (always soft scrambled, with that delightful mushy texture, liberally peppered and salted - my mom is good) on top of the crisp toast and melted butter, and ate it like an open-faced sandwich.
The next year I dove into my college experience with gusto, which meant lots of drinking until the wee hours, followed by mornings of necessarily hot and greasy breakfasts. Almost by default, I became a connoisseur of the diner. My favorite of all time is a place called Ernie's in Columbia, Missouri. I routinely went with the Number Five: two eggs over easy, wheat toast, hash browns and two links of fake-meat sausage (I haven't eaten meat since the fourth grade, when a group of girlfriends and I decided to save the earth by ending our consumption of animals. I stuck to it largely because I don't really like most meat anyway, but I do have a penchant for fake sausage).
The egg over easy was a newly discovered delight. The soft folds of the egg white broke easily to reveal the creamy golden nectar in its core. I created my bites with a kind of science - the egg, oozing yolk deliciousness, was balanced on a piece of toast, held to the mouth with a bite of sausage on my fork in the other hand, waiting to be combined to create sheer mouth ecstasy, complete with eye-rolling and moaning. A crucial part of this breakfast requires a saved bite of toast for moping up all the leftover yolk and tiny hash brown bits. This last bite is the quintessential perfect bite.
My exploration of the white orb of barnyard and kitchen wonder, which I had deprived myself of for so long, led me to what I believed to be the perfect egg preparation: the toad-in-a-hole. For the egg eater like myself at the time, someone who appreciated the egg most in combination with a good piece of toast, the toad-in-the-hole is pure poetry. You remove a hole from the middle of a piece of bread, toss the bread in a well-buttered pan, and crack an egg in the hole. After cooking and flipping the bread, the result is an over easy egg (or over medium or hard, however you prefer) BUILT INTO the toast. Utter genius.
The toad-in-the-hole was my breakfast calling card until about a year ago, when my friend Lindsay introduced me to the shy and more reclusive poached egg. Made well, the poached egg is silky, creamy, and incredibly soft. The yolk melts gracefully out of its creamy casing, rich and golden like an heiress removing her silk robe (I eat free-range, organic eggs for this reason - the yolk is so clearly more delicious, being rounder and firmer than conventional eggs and a brilliant orange-gold color). The poached egg has removed my need to combine eggs with toast - it is so incredibly scrumptious that it needs no accompaniment. Its deliciousity is unquestionable. The challenge of making a perfect poached egg only adds to the delight when success finally comes.
The egg continues to surprise and delight me, to thrill my taste buds, and to grace my mornings with its beauty and versatility. To chicken populations everywhere, producing this simple white sphere packed with unbelievable energy, taste and possibility, I say thank you.
