# America and egg cups **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 10, 2017, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904 "2017-07-10T09:21:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![SUZ\_MAC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@SUZ\_MAC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SUZ_MAC)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/61 "2017-07-10T14:45:08Z")
Soft-boiled eggs are my preferred way of eating eggs. A little butter, salt and pepper on top and toast for dippage. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/62 "2017-07-10T14:49:56Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > My ears ached for an hour afterward because of some kind of allergic reaction. (Eggs cooked all the way through do \*\*not \*\*have that effect on me.) > > Burned itself into my memory, that did. Have never had a soft-boiled egg since and never, ever want to again. There’s no physical reaction that would make your ears ache from a soft-boiled egg. Much more likely is a simple coincidence, a psychosomatic reaction or a false memory. The fact that you’ve never had a soft-boiled egg again also destroys your case as anyone on the Straight Dope should know that replication is absolutely necessary to establish certain knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/63 "2017-07-10T14:50:12Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Hardboiled eggs need to be peeled, and they also need to be hot. You eat \*\*hot \*\*hard-boiled eggs?!? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/64 "2017-07-10T14:53:31Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Other than the lack of a shell, isn’t a poached egg identical? > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > :eek: > > That’s the gastronmic equivalent of > > “Yes, but apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?” I was going to post that, as a child, I was given soft boiled eggs when I was sick (they were considered easy to keep down) and never used an egg cup. They were served in a bowl. After seeing the two quoted posts and doing some googling I realize that what I was being given (and what my mother called soft boiled) may have been poached. I’m not positive about that since I don’t recall seeing them prepared. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an egg cup other than in pictures. I think I assumed they were a fancy schmancy way of serving hard boiled eggs - more of a presentation thing - and you’d remove the egg to eat it. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/65 "2017-07-10T14:53:33Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > OK, quickly before I get back to work. Apologies if this has already been noted. > > Boiling eggs is a bit of a pain. Hardboiled eggs need to be peeled, and they also need to be hot. Soft boiled eggs, I haven’t attempted yet. But the whites need to be set, and the yolks need to be liquid. Timing, for me, would be a problem. I prefer my eggs fried, easy and over. I can put one on buttered toast to achieve the same combination as with SBEs in a cup with ‘soldiers’, but without the hassle. Yeah, I miss out on the ‘ceremony’; but I’m more interested in getting the food in mah belleh. Counterpoint: There’s no need to peel hard-boiled eggs whatsoever. You just put them in an egg cup, cut the top off with a knife and eat them with a spoon. Food, belleh; belleh, food. It couldn’t be easier, if you’ve got the right equipment. Of course if you haven’t got the right equipment then you end up having to do something ludicrous, like roll a hot egg over a plate and then pick fragments of peel off while burning your fingers. But what need when the right tool has been available for over a hundred years? Soft-boiled eggs, like all food, need to be cooked properly I grant you. But it’s not hard. Put eggs in room-temperature water. Bring to boil. Boil for three minutes. That is literally it. Boiled eggs have to be the simplest cooked food in existence. Just because it’s British, doesn’t mean there’s a ceremony attached. ---
**Author:** ![brainstall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@brainstall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brainstall)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/66 "2017-07-10T14:54:45Z")
Canadian here. I grew up eating soft boiled eggs from an egg cup. I even still have I have egg cups. They don’t see a lot of use, but now I have a hankering for eggs and soldiers, so perhaps they will come out of hiding from the back of the cupboard soon. In a pinch, a shot glass will do, but they don’t cuddle the egg the way a proper egg cup does. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/67 "2017-07-10T14:55:41Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I am American, and grew up eating soft boiled eggs in an egg cup. But yes, egg cups are uncommon, here, as are soft boiled eggs. (fried over easy is common, though.) When soft boiled eggs are served, they are usually served on toast. Same here. But I’ve neither eaten nor even seen such a thing in many decades. Although, I’m not certain about that last sentence. Poached eggs, maybe, but not soft boiled. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/68 "2017-07-10T14:55:48Z")
Now the thread has me curious about the appearances of egg cups in US TV and movies, and was about to do some googling to search for that when it occurred to me to see if the US unpopularity of egg cups ever had a thread on the dope. And of course it did. [In 2006](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=362940). ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/69 "2017-07-10T14:58:42Z")
As a young anglophile with a special love for transferware, I provided myself with half a dozen secondhand Spode egg cups, and crocheted half a dozen twee egg cozies. I have never once eaten an egg out of them. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/70 "2017-07-10T15:01:34Z")
> [@naita](#): > > There’s no physical reaction that would make your ears ache from a soft-boiled egg. Much more likely is a simple coincidence, a psychosomatic reaction or a false memory. The fact that you’ve never had a soft-boiled egg again also destroys your case as anyone on the Straight Dope should know that replication is absolutely necessary to establish certain knowledge. I assure you, there \*\*is \*\*such a reaction in my case. I’ve felt it many times, and some form of raw egg was always involved: soft-boiled, sunny-side up with runny yolks, whipped egg whites (used to make meringue), Orange Julius–type drinks, cake batter, probably other stuff I’ve mercifully forgotten. I don’t even have to know beforehand that there’s raw egg in what I’m ingesting. I can tell immediately from the reaction. My elder daughter reports having the same reaction too. The only way to get that horrible slimy feeling out of your Eustachian tubes is to dry-gargle and honk in a manner reminiscent of Felix Unger clearing his sinuses. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/71 "2017-07-10T15:04:29Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I’ve been to England. No you don’t. Yes they do. Americans on the other hand, don’t. (Hey, I hate soft-boiled eggs. But I also believe that anybody who puts as much work into frying an egg as Americans do is doing it wrong. Brits even fry them “with lace”). > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Hardboiled eggs … need to be hot. 😕 My main use of hardboiled eggs is as a cold snack. ---
**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/72 "2017-07-10T15:11:40Z")
I’ve never eaten a soft boiled egg or used an egg cup (although I’m familiar with the idea of egg cups) but I have a question: This idea of cutting the top of the egg shell off with a knife…doesn’t that get you bits of egg shell in your yolk and whatnot? When I peel a hard-boiled egg, I crack the whole thing all over and peel the shell off with the membrane, ideally in as few pieces as possible. Doesn’t the knife thing just shatter the shell into a bunch of shards? ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/73 "2017-07-10T15:12:50Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > It may have once been more popular in the US than it is now. I remember egg cups being featured in an episode of The Andy Griffith Show (4:54 into [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6xEWoYKTt0) segment.) I can’t remember seeing one shown in a much more recent show depicting people eating breakfast (or on the table in commercials for breakfast foods.) > > I have the memory of seeing somewhere some media depiction of someone tapping the top of a soft-boiled egg with the convex side of a spoon to crack it open, but can’t remember what movie or TV show it was in. That may not be the best example since that breakfast was served by a visiting British butler who was such a stereotype of a fastidious Englishman that he may have brought the cups with him. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/74 "2017-07-10T15:13:03Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > You eat \*\*hot \*\*hard-boiled eggs?!? :eek: Oh holy crap, yes I do. Have you ever had a warm or hot hard-boiled egg? It’s REALLY good. To the point that Mr. Athena and I have taken to putting cold hard-boiled eggs in the microwave to warm them before eating. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/75 "2017-07-10T15:13:16Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > Americans: British twitter is this morning reeling about claims that egg cups are not in common use in the United States. > > Can you confirm/deny? > > If confirm: how do you eat soft-boiled eggs? I used egg cups in the 1970s as a child. I occasionally use them now, but I’m more likely to scoop out the soft boiled egg whole from the shell into a bowl, and eat it like that (almost like a poached egg). I do have a small assortment of egg cups at home. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/76 "2017-07-10T15:14:28Z")
I love soft boiled eggs, but never used or had an egg cup. We just used a pedestaled shot glass when I was a kid. I now just use a regular shot glass, since I don’t own any pedestal ones. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/77 "2017-07-10T15:18:27Z")
> [@Renee](#): > > This idea of cutting the top of the egg shell off with a knife…doesn’t that get you bits of egg shell in your yolk and whatnot? When I peel a hard-boiled egg, I crack the whole thing all over and peel the shell off with the membrane, ideally in as few pieces as possible. Doesn’t the knife thing just shatter the shell into a bunch of shards? This is how a master does it: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/XlqLDrTTmOg/hqdefault.jpg "Boiled Eggs With Anchovy Soldiers Recipe") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlqLDrTTmOg) ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/78 "2017-07-10T15:21:03Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > Counterpoint: There’s no need to peel hard-boiled eggs whatsoever. You just put them in an egg cup, cut the top off with a knife and eat them with a spoon. > … Sure there is. When I make hardboiled eggs, it’s often to slice or chop them for use in some other dish. For example sliced in a lettuce salad, or chopped to make egg salad. That’s not done in England? ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/79 "2017-07-10T15:25:02Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > Sure there is. When I make hardboiled eggs, it’s often to slice or chop them for use in some other dish. For example sliced in a lettuce salad, or chopped to make egg salad. That’s not done in England? Yes, to be fair. But Johnny LA seemed to be talking about eating hot hardboiled eggs by themselves. In which case the eggcup is your friend. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2017, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904/80 "2017-07-10T15:29:19Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I assure you, there \*\*is \*\*such a reaction in my case. I’ve felt it many times, and some form of raw egg was always involved: soft-boiled, sunny-side up with runny yolks, whipped egg whites (used to make meringue), Orange Julius–type drinks, cake batter, probably other stuff I’ve mercifully forgotten. > > I don’t even have to know beforehand that there’s raw egg in what I’m ingesting. I can tell immediately from the reaction. > > My elder daughter reports having the same reaction too. The only way to get that horrible slimy feeling out of your Eustachian tubes is to dry-gargle and honk in a manner reminiscent of Felix Unger clearing his sinuses. And I’m telling you you need to up the scientific rigor of this examination. Humanity is rife with examples of people just as convinced as you of some quirky reaction to food or environmental factors, that turn out to not be real. It’s very possible to build up the conviction you apparently possess without an actual physical reaction existing, due to well known cognitive biases. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-and-egg-cups/790904.md?page=5)