the egg question

depending on which of the two plates you would prefer i could probably predict your nationality.

joke aside. after trying again and again to gently introduce my way of eating a breakfast egg to my environment, it dawned on me that i'm the odd one out in the united states. eating the egg in the style that can be seen on the left plate seems to be a phenomenon restricted to a germany-shaped area.

u.s. americans enjoy eggs in many ways: fried, scrambled, hard boiled on toast, soft boiled on toast, sunny side up, poached, as omelets, in quiche, and egg nog for christmas. it seems, however, that the egg in the united states is barely eaten in its maybe simplest form -- apart from slurping it raw: just boiling it and scooping it out of its shell.

to spark an egg exchange for either side, here's a short how-to for relishing your breakfast protein properly in a) soft-boiled egg on toast the united states and b) egg in an egg cup in germany

both start off by boiling the chicken product either in a pot or if available in an elegant and most convenient egg cooker as shown below. its lid features circular lines inside to mark the amount of water for soft, medium, and hard-boiled results. plus, in the middle of the inside, the inventors installed a sharp little barb [Eierpiekser/Eierstecher] to prick the egg. a must in germany but rather rare in the states, where i hadn't seen an egg piercer anywhere in the country before.
















the next step for a u.s.-style morning meal already digresses from the chicken-y center piece toward creating a firm base in form of toasted bread. of course, like many things in the states, toasters come in bigger sizes.

















but the golden-yellow-brown warm crispy bread per se is not enough. as my favorite u.s. american likes to say: "a bit of butter makes everything better." interestingly, the glorified fat is not smeared on as a cohesive, evenly spread thin layer but dotted on randomly.
















finally back to the egg, which was fiercely scared [abgeschreckt] with cold water to ease peeling. with the raw force of trained egg-crushing fingers, the egg is brutally broken into two pieces,



















the golden-white inside then forced out of its protective shell with a knife to rest on its toasted death bed,



















to be hacked into pieces with the blade.















salt then is sprinkled into the freshly inflicted wounds of the egg, topped with some more burning pepper.



















sometimes the whole arrangement is further chopped into toast cubes [Büffchen] for the helplessly butchered egg to safely travel on a fork into the maw of the epicure.



















in contrast, consider the unscathed little humpty-dumpty in this finely adorned egg cup [Eierbecher]. what a peaceful scene.



















with an elegant, rapid sideways movement the top part is then surgically clean removed to pave the way for a taste bud feast. this process is -- unjustifiably, of course, -- dubbed as "beheading" by my favorite u.s. american.















first, i usually enjoy spooning the egg white nestled in the lopped cap,















to afterwards slowly work my way dowwards after garnishing each layer of yolk and albumen with a pinch of salt and pepper. again, this is something my favorite u.s. american considers a cruel scooping and scraping out of the dead baby chick. plus, he says, the shell might get in the way, pieces might break off to mix with the egg content, and spicing is messy...

the solution to all complaints is a saucer [Unterteller] placed underneath the egg cup. sometimes a small plate is even attached to the cup. the most elegant version of an egg cup i've seen even made room to accommodate an egg spoon, which by the way is smaller than a tea spoon and made of plastic.

thus, elegantly eating an egg is just a matter of equipment -- and attitude.

either way, u.s. american carnage or german beheading:



















...cannot put humpty-dumpty together agaaaaain!