I do like eggs.

I do not like the way you slide,
I do not like your soft inside,
I do not like you lots of ways
And I could do for many days
Without eggs.

--Frances's song from Bread and Jam for Frances

by Russell Hoban and Lillian Hoban (Illustrator)
published 1964.

Do you like eggs? I like them, but Frances, the human-like badger girl who sang this song, obviously didn't like them at all. At least not until the end of the much-loved children's book when she gives up the diet of bread and jam and returns to eating lots of different foods, even hard-boiled eggs with salt. Bread and Jam for Frances is a great book that has been appreciated by three generations in our family. Yes, I like the soft inside!

What made me think about Frances and her sliding, oozy egg? I read an article today in the Guardian food section today about their idea of the perfect fried-egg sandwich. No one is pickier or more self-assured than a Guardian food writer in their ongoing how-to-eat series, this one titled "How to eat: a fried egg sandwich" by Tony Naylor, published May 2, 2020.

This article is full of half-serious advice on how to choose bread: must be square and not toasted. Or whether to add condiments, which are "acceptable." Or vegetables -- "the inclusion of any salad items, such as sliced tomato, is symptomatic of a self-loathing that requires psychiatric intervention."

The most didactic advice in the article was about the egg itself:

"The greatest schism in the fried egg community is between the chosen few who flip the egg and fry the yolk until it is verging on solid (over-medium approaching over-hard in US diner lingo) and those heretics and heathens who leave the yolk runny. 

"The soft yolk serve is mystifying. Even if (correctly) you do not cut your sandwich, eventually you will bite into that runny yolk and it will leak, nay spurt and gush forth, if not down your chin and over your fingers then to coagulate on cold porcelain, where it will set like an ugly stain on your psyche – a hideous reminder of your casual waste. The only people who want golden yolk seeping on to plates are food stylists on fried egg sandwich shoots. Unless you are going to suck hideously at your sandwich like a teat, a full, tremulous yolk poised to explode is pointless jeopardy."

I don't mind being called a heretic and a heathen -- after all I'm American! But my own preference is to make a fried egg sandwich with a soft egg, that is, easy-over, and then eat it with a knife and fork, so that the runny part can be sopped up by the bread. I'm surprised that a British writer wouldn't have thought of this! I also like to cut the middle out of a piece of bread and fry the egg inside the hole, but let's not go there.

Fernand Point (1897-1955), a revered French chef, wrote some famous instructions for frying eggs.  His cookbook contains very few recipes that can plausibly be made under the current conditions -- almost all the recipes contain truffles or fois gras or both (like the first recipe below), or require skills that are usual only for a professionally trained chef. But Point's fried egg recipe shows that eggs are simple, and stand on their own.

Point's Recipe: I have tried and quite liked it, though I don't always do it.

I could say more about eggs, which I like in many ways. For one thing, eggs are still available during the current shortages: at least I've been able to get them. They are a very convenient food while we are shut in, a good source of protein. This is especially relevant now that much of the meat supply is being processed by extremely mistreated workers, put in danger of contracting Covid-19 because of pre-existing terrible working conditions in the meat packing industry. I may have more to say about that at another time.

But what I would really like to know, is why do children's authors so often go on about NOT liking eggs?

Blog post copyright © 2020 by mae sander.

Images are from the books I mentioned.