Maybe you’re right, when I said eggs are always kept in the fridge it was hyperbole, but I went from personal experience because I’ve never been to a household where they are not refrigerated. The fact that almost all fridges come with a special tray for keeping eggs lets me think that it’s at least very common. And you’re right about eggs in the supermarket.
ETA: I wanted to mention egg cookers as well, but I was afraid that somebody’s head would asplode at the sight of such an exotic gadget, judging by the uproar and confusion some customs about cooking eggs internationally this thread has already caused ;).
Why did you quote me and say this? I have said **nothing **at all about how difficult they are to make. I talked about how inconvenient they are to eat, based entirely on what people who like them have said about how they are consumed, where you need special cups and cutting techniques. This is like the weirdly vehement “And egg cups are not a Veblen good. They’re really, really not.” you threw in earlier - no one (especially me) actually claimed that they are a Veblen good, so replying to me by insisting that they’re not doesn’t make any sense.
It’s surprising and/or funny because they’re insisting that Americans are crazy for not owning the special dish for eating a particular preparation of eggs that is outshined by other common preparations that don’t need a specialty dish, or even a dish at all to consume. The problem with cutting off the half of the sentence that answers your question, then asking your question is that the original version is still in this thread.
As I pointed out earlier, at no point have I said that it was ‘basically impossible’, or even difficult to cook soft-boiled eggs. Or that they’re ‘basically impossible’ to enjoy. The quoted material simply doesn’t support your outlandish claims, people are only ‘surprisingly vehement’ when you ignore what they have actually written and instead invent your own surprisingly vehement strawman to tear down. “I am not going to invest in specialty hardware for a food preparation that I have a better version of that doesn’t need hardware” is not exactly an unreasonable position.
I think a bit of the appeal of a soft boiled egg, should one be so inclined, is the little bit of ceremony. A special egg cup, toast cut into soldiers, a sprinkle of salt and some fresh ground pepper, then trying to get the perfect cap off the top, followed by dipping the soldiers into the soft yolk, then finally scraping out the white with that tiny spoon that kicks around in the cutlery drawer and hardly ever gets used. I like to save my last bit of toast for the white. And then perhaps on to the second egg. I tend to shovel food in too often, or eat on the run. Sometimes it’s nice to slow down.
Probably because, like Stanislaus you’re responding to things I didn’t write. I never claimed that anyone was trying to force me to do anything in this thread.
Instant noodle packets aren’t what I think of when someone says ‘soup’. I think of canned soup, boxed soup, or homemade soup; “Instant soup” is just noodle packets in my categorization, and not something that I commonly eat. If you find it ‘hostile’ that I don’t think of instant noodle packets when someone says the word ‘soup’, and especially that I would not use the blanket term ‘soup’ for something that really only applies to instant noodle packets, that’s really your problem.
I said it’s not me in the post you were responding to. Not sure why you need an ‘if’ here when the fact that I only use boiling water rarely is rather key to the discussion of how I’m able to live without an electric kettle.
No idea, if you want to talk about what someone else wrote then you’ll need to quote whoever is talking about ‘trying to force’.
I’m a card-carrying North American and I consider my electric kettle speedy and indispensable. (Note! I’m not trying to convince anyone to switch to electric kettles or 120V mains).
I was totally unfamiliar with electric kettles until my newly married wife brought one home. Now I find it convenient and use it every day. It saves me from needing a drip coffeemaker, a device with only one use. It’s also very useful for broth, etc. Pre-boiling water before I put it on the stovetop is a big time-saver.
Personally I do believe it’s more efficient than heating water on the stove because the heat goes directly into the water, not the environment. But probably the most efficient kind is the Japanese type with a pump dispenser and insulated reservoir that constantly keeps the water very hot. That way you only end up heating exactly what you need, and there’s no waiting.
What condescending nonsense - if you’re someone who doesn’t use boiling water often then there actually isn’t a benefit to see. It’s not that people who have no interest in that gadget are fools who lack experience, it’s that they are people who have different patterns than you. If you’re someone who drinks tea daily and routinely eats ramen noodles as a matter of course, then it’s useful. But if you only use above-tap-hot water in the kitchen rarely, then an electric kettle really is a special piece of kit only used on rare occasions.
People claimed it was a helpful device for preparing soup, which is actually something I do fairly often. But as it turns out, by ‘soup’ they only meant little instant noodle packets, not canned soup or homemade soup. Saying ‘they’re great for soup’ when it’s really only ramen and cup-o-soup that it helps with is pretty unclear.
How do you eat it while driving? No breakfast food that cannot easily be consumed while driving qualifies as ‘easiest’ in my book. So bagels and any kind of breakfast sandwich (including ones made on English muffins, biscuits, toast, or specialty bread) or breakfast burrito is going to win easiest over something that you can’t just grab and go, but have to sit down and use a special dish to eat. And I definitely can’t give a ‘least fiddly’ label to a food that requires specialized hardware to eat, the fact that it requires special equipment is enough fiddle to disqualify it.
I never bothered with all that. For us, it was just a bit of salt and some bread on the side; it doesn’t even have to be toasted. None of this dipping soldiers stuff. No egg cups, just a shot glass. What I love about the soft boiled egg is just spooning up the pure yolky goodness. Other egg preparations don’t really allow for scooping up the yolk in as convenient a manner.
Why have you introduced driving into the equation.? By that logic a bowl of cereal doesn’t qualify as an “easy” breakfast. You really shouldn’t be driving and eating breakfast anyway, it is dangerous.
Plus I don’t know where you get the idea that it needs specialised hardware to prepare or eat. It doesn’t. You’ve got all you need in your kitchen already. As many people have told you already, it is as easy to prepare an eat a soft boiled egg as it is for any other preparation of egg.
You seem determined to erect obstacles where none exist, if you don’t like the idea of it, fine, don’t eat it.
Yes, it takes exactly the same amount of equipment it takes to make a hard boiled egg, and takes about ten minutes to prepare (if you do it the way I do it with a little bit of water and steaming them.) It’s a “quick breakfast” for me, but I typically don’t have them for breakfast, but rather lunch or even supper.
Forgive me interpreting the assertion that they were “way too much work and trouble” as a claim about the work involved in making them. I should have course seen that you were only talking about the apparent difficulty you envisage having in eating them, despite you not specifying that in any way. Please, amend my previous statement to
“But if you’ve never tried to **eat ** soft-boiled eggs, how can you possibly judge how much work they are to eat? The fact that loads of people do **eat **them regularly should be a bit of a hint that your assessment of how difficult they are to eat might not be entirely accurate.”
Again, this is what you said:
If you didn’t mean to say that eggcups are purchased for reasons of conspicuous consumption and status signalling then I’m happy to be corrected. But what did you mean?
Somehow, you seem to have missed the bit where I quoted the second half of the sentence and responded to it. The problem with that is that the original version is still there. To expand on the point I made there: no one is saying Americans are crazy for not owning egg cups. If you disagree, just quote the relevant posts.
Apparently soft-boiled eggs fall into the crack between “too much work and trouble for a quick breakfast” and “not elaborate enough for a full breakfast”. If that doesn’t make them basically impossible to enjoy, under what conditions could you enjoy them? You basically ruled out any possible occasion for them.
“Invest”. How much do you think eggcups cost? And how do you know your version is better till you try the alternative? Maybe you’ll love them.
No breakfast sandwich worth its salt can be consumed without it gooshing and leaking over your fingers and down onto your shirt or trousers. I wouldn’t want to eat one while trying to pilot an automobile. Two hands and a napkin are essential.
Am I strange for having grown up with an egg cooker? It was an electric gadget my mother used to make soft boiled eggs. Which she served in egg cups. We never had any special flatware, though. I opened the top of the egg and scooped out the gooey goodness with an ordinary small spoon. I’ve never heard of toast “soldiers” before this thread.
The “average” American maybe grabs a cup of coffee (often out of a Keurig) for breakfast, and might have a piece of toast or a breakfast bar. Toast can be “advanced breakfast” My daughter has a bowl of cereal. My son’s breakfast is fiddly, he does steel cut outs - but he puts them on low when he wakes up and then takes a shower. My husband does a smoothie. I do a veggie muffin out of the freezer or toast and coffee.
Grocery stores have an entire aisle of cereal - both sides. And about half a row of freezer case full of breakfast sandwiches you microwave and toaster waffles
Anything more complicated than “pour cereal into bowl, top with milk” or “put in microwave for 90 seconds” is fiddly to most Americans.
Europe in general tends to be bigger on breakfast than Americans. We eat in the morning by throwing something down our gullets before starting the car to get to work - we probably hit snooze one time too many. The purpose of this is not to have tummy grumbles before lunch - not to actually eat a satisfying meal. Our big “breakfast” meal is actually “brunch” - a meal that - when people have it - is a late breakfast, early brunch (sometimes after church) that usually features breakfast foods
By these standards - the exact timing of a soft boiled egg is fiddly. Even more fiddly is spooning it out of an egg cup to consume it. (For continuity - I’m one of the Americans that owns egg cups and teeny tiny spoons for them - I do not own the egg cutter - my kids have to actually use the spoon to open the egg - so I do understand the relative fiddlyiness of a soft boiled egg over a bowl of cereal - though nothing beats the breakfast bar for the pinnacle of American’s laziness over grabbing sustenance in the morning. Its portable and can be eaten in the car on the way - without risking cheese on your trousers.
You can still buy one. I could go to the store and pick one up today - so its not even a deep catalog thing that you can only get via the internet. I do live in Minnesota, so lots of Germanic heritage.
Oatmeal in the U.S. is generally sold as “rolled” oats—steamed and flattened.
I prefer steel-cut oats, which are chopped by blades instead of steamed and flattened. They take a bit longer to coin than rolled oats, but have a nicer texture and flavor.
I’ve had a soft boiled egg at some point in my life, although I don’t remember when or where. It was good. It wasn’t served in an egg cup, although I am familiar with egg cups, probably from TV or movies. If I make eggs at home, I scramble them, because I’m a lousy lazy cook, and that’s what easiest for me. If I eat out, I get an omelette.
I’ve never seen an electric kettle. People here used to have stove-top kettles, but those have largely disappeared with the ubiquity of the microwave oven.
Do people in England (and elsewhere) have coffee makers? Most people I know have one on their kitchen counter. In my opinion and experience, instant coffee is only for desperate times, when you can’t get the real stuff for some reason.
This is actually what I hate about my electric kettle. I HAVE to watch it, because I need the water to be actually boiling, not just to have been boiled, when I use it, and it shuts off the instant it comes to a full boil. If I don’t watch it the water cools down before I notice it’s turned off.
To paraphrase the other revered Adams (Douglas) the water needs to be boilING, not boilED.