Saturday, January 24, 2009

EGGS – FUNNY SIDE UP - I

Some like their eggs scrambled, some poached and some swear by their omelettes or French-toasts, but I’ve always loved eggs boiled and unspoiled (no salt, no pepper).

When I was a child, I preferred the whites and choked on the yolks (much as my daughters do now), but with the contrariness that is typical of me, now I prefer the fatty, cholesterol-y yellow to the bland white part.

Here’s an egg memory, served with the salt-smile of nostalgia.

Once, when we were around twelve years old, some of us para (neighbourhood) friends decided to have a picnic in a garden which was adjacent to our neighbour’s house. The grand menu was rice, dal, fried cauliflowers (picked fresh from that very garden) and dim-er jhol (egg-curry).

Everyone contributed their share of the money, and we went to the market in a big group shepherded by my mother. Our shoe-string budget allowed us to buy only one egg for each. My brother and his friend tried to augment our resources by filching two eggs on the sly, but my strict-and-honest mother made them go back immediately and return the eggs, which they red-facedly did with a garbled explanation about there being some mistake in counting the eggs, which the sceptical old egg-seller refused to believe.

On the day of the picnic, one of my school-friends turned up at the last moment, when the food had almost been cooked (under the winter sun and stirred by a pleasant breeze). An invitation had to be extended, and was graciously accepted. Some of the picnickers were worrieddal and gravy and veggies could easily be shared, but what about the only-one-apiece-eggs? All misgivings changed to smiles when my dainty and lady-like friend accompanied me to the picnic-spot, stepping cautiously over stones and tufts of grass, her two hands extended in front of her, carefully holding her entry-fee: a boiled egg.

We gave her an extra-generous helping of the curry to make up for our ungenerous thoughts.

DO SHARE AN EGG-CITING MEMORY WITH US.

14 comments:

Lazyani said...

Oof, how I miss those makeshift picnics that we had in our backyards!!

I have one particular memory where we manage to put the sabzi on fire.

I will not talk of eggs as I am now on a forced low cholesterol diet:(

Ugich Konitari said...

Throughout my childhood, I associated only omelettes with eggs. For some reason, my scrupolously vegetarian mother decided we needed to have an egg, as an omellete, possibly so the flat nature of it would take it closer to a pancake .... But this allowed me to enjoy wonderful omelletty variations with capsicums and cheese etc in my 20's when i lived away.

The other memory I have is of my mother-in-law, after my marriage. As a diabetic, her doctor asked her to have an egg everyday in any form, to improve her general protein intake in her 60's. Like my mother many years before, she preferred the omelette version. She would sit at the breakfast table, literally wrap the piece of omelette in toast, and eat it , to be followed immediately by comforting waves of tea. The honest effort was applaudable, but till the end, she hated the stuff ....Folks were made differently in the old days...

Anonymous said...

Try to break an egg while keeping it between your both palms.
Possible ?

PBandJ said...

We do not have any great egg stories yet, but since Peanut loves eggs any way you cook 'em, I expect we will have something to share someday! Thanks for sharing; your blog is a great read anytime!

seana graham said...

I can relate to ugich's mother-in-law. I do like eggs now, although I think I am becoming pickier about them again. But when I was a kid, I hated them. Pretty much in any form. My mom usually let us get by with some form of hot or cold cereal, but every once in awhile, she became inflexible and insisted that I eat my scrambled eggs before I went to school. Of course, I didn't, initially, and then had to gulp down a few cold rubbery bites in order to get away from the table. I actually have a hard time connecting this to my mother's day to day philosophy of childrearing, which was typically much gentler and more benevolent. But I do remember those rubbery eggs...

I started liking eggs suddenly and out of the blue. It was on the morning that we were moving from California to Denver, and I was in the fifth grade. Our family friends had us over for the night and the mother asked us whether we wanted some eggs for breakfast. To my own surprise I tried some, and liked them. I'm sure that some psychoanalytical context could be pinned on this but I can still remember why I didn't like my mother's scrambled eggs, and still don't like that style all that much to this day.

Sukku said...

Nice egggy.....story....I prefer omelette with pieces of deep fried tofu....

Anyway thanks for sharing....and when I visit your place ...I will bring a hard boiled egg along....Happy Republic Day....

Peter Rozovsky said...

We would take long car trips to the beach, and we would stop at rest areas by the roadside for our picnics. We would spread out the patchwork quilt my grandfather had made, then unpack the picnic coolers.

I don't remember every item on the menu, but I always loved the cold, hard-boiled eggs, and I would make every effort to eat more than my share.
==============
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
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Kavi said...

Ah eggs !! i only recall eggs being splashed on to an actors face when the movies bombed !!

At other times, they were eaten. in all forms. Except the rotten !

:)

lopa said...

I remember when I was a kid ,eating half-boiled egg was considered very healthy unlike now when fully cooked eggs are considered safer & healthier.I always loved and still love eggs, there was a lady who delivered home raised hen's eggs everyday.The color of the yolk was like the rising sun.I remember being aghast when for the first time I saw almost white yolk that came from poultry eggs which I simply detested.

seana graham said...

I'm curious, because on my blog list, a Funny Side Up II comes up but I get an error message when I try to reach it. Share or don't, of course, but my curiosity is piqued.

pradipwritenow said...

Sucharita
I remmber asame situation like this. In our fiel work we almost everyday have a lunch converted to picnic. We meet at 3 P.M near a fountain or a hill riverlet(Jhora). Our menue was also the same and we ran short of egg because of the last minute arrival of a forest officer. My teaboy( actually a bold old man) solved the problem. He went up a tall tree, came out with a nest of Jungle fowl containing 12 eggs. We took one and returned back the nest to the same place in the tree. The Dimer Jhol(egg- Curry) tasted great.

Aleta said...

As a child, I never liked eating eggs. Greg is a fantastic cook and he makes wonderful omelettes that have cheese and sauted veggies in them. Yum!

I enjoyed your story ~ how lovely to recall picnics and the admittance to the family fun ~ one egg!

Hmm, I have one childhood memory to share. I'm a little embarassed, to be honest. Just remember I was a child.

During Easter, on my Dad's side of the family, we would always go to my Grandmother's (MawMaw) house. MawMaw had a farm, consisting of chickens, turkeys, roosters, cows, pigs. You name it, she raised it. (To this day, she still lives off the land, but primarily with a huge veggie garden she tends to each day. She's 82 years old.)

Anyway, back to the childhood memory. For Easter, MawMaw would collect the chicken and turkey eggs - cook them hard boiled and paint them. This was the Easter tradition - Easter Eggs were painted and then hid throughout the yard to find in an Easter Egg hunt for the children.

Afterwards, all the family members (children and adults) would do the egg break.

One person would hold their egg in the middle of their hand, while the other person tried to crack their egg over the held egg, to see which egg was stronger. The one that didn't crack would try to crack another one, until there was only one left - the winner!

It was fun, but my brother and I would say, "Now what? The eggs are only cracked on the top and bottom." Rob, my brother, came up with an idea.... He took the eggs to the front of MawMaw's house. Most of the relatives were inside or in the backyard.

Rob wanted to do an egg toss. Each time the egg was caught, we would take a step backwards and toss it again. Yes, many eggs broke on the yard... and... when the hard boil eggs where all broken... Rob went back into the house to get raw eggs.... and yes... they broke on the yard.

Nobody knew what we did. The next day, MawMaw called my parents, complaining about the SMELL of the rotten eggs in her front yard.

I can laugh about it now, because guess what ~ Rob and I created a family tradition. All of our cousins and aunts and uncles now do the egg toss in the front yard, still to this day. But this time, MawMaw knows about it!

Sorry about the rambling.

Sucharita Sarkar said...

Thanks, everyone, for the mouth-watering (and sometimes nose-wriggling) egg-stories.
The egg saga continues...

Mampi said...

Aww How cute...
You write so well.
One is almost transported with you to the scene.