Saturday, April 5, 2014

E ~ Eggs - Hard Boiled Please! #atozchallenge


All Aboard! "It's Very Swedish..." a train on a cultural journey through Sweden, exploring the differences big and small between American and Swedish culture.

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Eggs?  Why is she writing about eggs?  I could do a whole Bubba on eggs: eggs over easy, soft-boiled eggs, deviled eggs, eggs benedict, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, omelets, egg white omelets, Denver omelets...Americans eat eggs!  This chick has lost it.  Besides, is this whole month going to be about food?  (No, it isn't.)

Well, I almost did lose it when I was working on the taxes this afternoon, but no, I haven't lost it about eggs.  In Sweden, the hard-boiled egg is the most popular, and it's found everywhere.

Go to any breakfast buffet, you'll find some. Eating a sandwich?  There's probably some sliced egg on it. Having some of the popular WASA bread (available at Safeway) with kaviar (which we will get to at K) you'll probably put some sliced hard-boiled egg on it as well, THEN your dill.  (Which was our topic yesterday.)

The most popular way to eat a hard-boiled egg, though, is in the egg cup, as pictured above,which The Nutritionist staged, The Swede photographed, and then emailed me from his iPhone 5c. Which he had before I got mine.  Talk about "you will be assimilated..."  

No, I don't have any egg cups of my own, though how that happened is truly a mystery since I have oodles of Farmor's (father's mother) kitchen equipment, and China sets, and table cloths...maybe Swissie has all the egg cups. Which wouldn't make sense.  She doesn't like eggs...oh well, a mystery for another day.

As I was saying, put the hard-boiled egg in the egg cup.  Cut off the top quarter with a sharp knife. Scoop out egg with small spoon. Tiny spoon.  The kind Swedes stir coffee with. Like this:


Scoop egg out of top of shell and eat.  Now you have an opening to the rest of the egg, and can scoop it out at will, adding condiments of your choice.  You might like salt, pepper, kaviar, DILL, anchovies...who knows.  Swedes eat a much more savory breakfast than we do.

You might be wondering if Swedes do the crazy stuff at Easter that we do with eggs. NO.  They don't color eggs, they don't hide eggs, they don't give their kids baskets with eggs with candy inside, although I do remember one year getting a giant, as in probably 7" long by 3" wide, elaborately decorated egg that came apart and inside were little toys and some tiny wrapped candies.  

I think Farmor and Farfar brought it to me from another European country they had visited on vacation.  I saved it a long time, after eating the candy, of course. (I have a nick-name tab above if you don't know who all my people are...I'm done typing "father's mother" every time...see, still cranky from taxes...) 

What's your favorite way to eat eggs?  Do you color eggs at Easter?

~Tina, who asks that you pardon her crankiness.  I'm writing my posts the night before and yes, it's 4/3 and yes I do know that the taxes are due in 12 days...hence the crankiness...sigh.  Procrastination, oh how you kick me in the butt every year...

P.S Not bad on the picmonkey, eh?  Learning. NOT INTUITIVE, despite what some creative people have told me...give me a calculus problem instead thankyouverymuch.



39 comments:

Andrew Leon said...

In The House on the Corner, Ruth has a very special relationship with eggs.

And why in the world would you bother with an egg cup for a hard boiled egg? That seems to be going a bit far.

Sheena-kay Graham said...

I've seen the egg cup used on television before. Nice to learn more about it. I like hard and soft boiled egg. Though my fave is fried.

Anonymous said...

Colouring eggs at Easter was a tradition in England in my childhood. I suspect it is being lost. http://suestrifles.wordpress.com

Anonymous said...

My favourite ... soft scrambled eggs. Although when I was child, I preferred soft boiled eggs with soldiers (small fingers of buttered bread for dipping).
Happy A to Z'ing. :)

Anna (herding cats-burning soup) said...

Ahh I've so used egg cups! My grandparents have/had them so we used them often. I still think they're rather fun :) My favorite eggs are fried and in sandwich form with cheddar cheese and apricot jam on them. So good! And very little competition during meals because no one else will try them. lol

Happy A to Z-ing!
~Anna
herding cats & burning soup.

Unknown said...

Now you've made me feel like a hard boiled egg! We eat ours like that in Australia but we cook them soft boiled and cut up toast soldiers which we dip into the egg in the egg cup. Love your upbeat blog!
Visiting from the A to Z Challenge :)

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

On occasion, I'll have eggs somewhere, but not at home because we just don't buy them.
I was asked to help hide eggs for our church's upcoming Easter egg hunt. I asked if I could wing the eggs at the kids instead, and now all the guys want to do that.
I'll let you know how that pans out...

JoJo said...

I love eggs too. When I was a kid I coloured the hard boiled ones. But since I am now an over the top crafter, I want to save the eggs since I put so much work into them, so I have to blow out the yolks in order to dye and decorate them.

Andrea said...

I hear you about the taxes...I usually do ours around April 10th. I gave up procrastination this year for lent, and they have been done for weeks...Good luck to you!

I have gone through many phases of hard boiled eggs in my life, eating just the white, eating them all, not eating them at all. Nobody else in my house will even try them!

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Tina .. for this eggy post - now I want a soft-boiled egg .. can't have them any other way ... but an egg and potato salad with nipped spring onions and sprigs of dill ... too good.

I do have some egg cups ... and I love your Swedish spoons .. lovely to have some heirlooms ...

Coloured eggs - not sure if we ever did - we might have done and tried to blow the egg out ..

Easter can be great fun for the kids .. cheers Hilary

Jo said...

I do have egg cups although I haven't made soft boiled eggs for a while. Coincidence last night I made Devilled Eggs and I made sure they were really devilled, so often they are not even mildly hot and spicy. My most frequent use of eggs is in omelettes which I make a lot, or quiches now and then.

Those Swedish spoons are like my coffee spoons which are tiny but not as fancy.

In the UK we used to get fancy chocolate eggs filled with candies which I loved although I remember my first Easter Egg after the war, it was totally plain, empty and wrapped in foil. I loved it.

Anonymous said...

OMG I was working on my taxes yesterday afternoon and cursing the whole taxation complexity and waste of my precious time.

You're a good egg, Tina!!

HeartSong Normandie said...

Love following your swedish adventures. I do love an egg! Bonjour from France and enjoy the a to z challenge :-)http://detoutcoeurlimousin.blogspot.fr/2014/04/everyone-should-make-mistakes.html

Unknown said...

Hey Tina,

Love your posts and your adventures. Great post and very Swedish culture I am learning.

Regards from Belgium, a fresh year from Cameroon : http://myeverydaypersonal.blogspot.be/

Kate @ Another Clean Slate said...

We used to color eggs but not anymore- no kiddos in the family. Although it might be fun anyways!

Kathleen Jennette said...

I remember eating soft boiled eggs served in egg cups and scooping them out over toast. I liked them back then, not today though with the cholesterol thing that hit me. But I do love eggs and crave them still.
Katy Did

Life's Ride In Between

David P. King said...

I love hard boiled eggs (but I have a character who doesn't). :)

Anonymous said...

I like scrambled and fried over hard - no runny yolks, please!

Bob Sanchez said...

Yes, Life is Good, Tina. But it will be even better if you try huevos rancheros. Them's eggs!

Anonymous said...

Eggs are so versatile too. I'm partial to soft-boiled when I'm a little under the weather. However, I like eggs just about any way they can be fixed. They're so yummy!

MJ, A to Z Challenge Co-Host
Writing Tips
Effectively Human
Lots of Crochet Stitches


Mary Aalgaard said...

I also wrote about eggs today. I have some silver egg holders. I learned to eat soft boiled eggs in Germany.
Play off the Page

Rachel said...

I'm a real southern girl. I like my eggs sunny side up with bacon, hash browns, toast, sausage, and juice. Or scrambled with gravy. I like other types too, but those are my favorites, which I now want.

Also, I don't know what our time difference is and this is the first real chance I've had time to myself today. However my phone is at 10% so it needs to charge. Perhaps tomorrow will work out better for math?

Unknown said...

I do love me some eggs.
the kids only eat them scrambled, I prefer mine poached.

sugandha said...

I am a vegetarian but I eat Eggs. Guess I can then survive in Sweden :) Good post.

Anonymous said...

I'm a big fan of the hard boiled egg. We eat them a lot in our house and we're not Swedish. Their just too yummy not to eat all year round.

I have an egg cup from my great grandma. We use it for soft-boiled eggs though.

Laura Clipson said...

I think most people here in England have egg cups - soft boiled eggs are a pretty common meal for us here, with fingers of buttered toast to dip in them. I call it dippy eggs and soldiers :)

Anonymous said...

Well, now I guess I have to go buy some tiny spoons! I love hardboiled eggs, so thanks for the reminder to do something with all those extra eggs in the refrigerator. Sorry you're dealing with the taxes. Thankfully, my husband does those & all I do is sign my name. I despise doing taxes. Now I have to go have a hardboiled egg to make me forget about them. :)

Fe said...

Hello, Tina

I love your sense of humour. You dish it out is exactly the right proportion. :)

Visiting from A-Z 2014 and good to see you again.

Felicity

Fe said...

Hello, Tina

I love your sense of humour. You dish it out is exactly the right proportion. :)

Visiting from A-Z 2014 and good to see you again.

Felicity

Fe said...

Hello, Tina

I love your sense of humour. You dish it out is exactly the right proportion. :)

Visiting from A-Z 2014 and good to see you again.

Felicity

Kathe W. said...

love eggs too! very fun post! Thanks for co-hosting! Cheers!

CA Heaven said...

When it comes to people and eggs, I like them smiling >:)

Cold As Heaven

worddancewoman said...

I enjoy your informal, authentic writing style. Sorry you will get my google avatar here, but if you contact me, do it thru my blog (below), My google email is a bit of a nuisance currently...

I can't wait to see if L is going to be a certain favorite Scandinavian thing that I love (and I don't mean Lutefisk).

I am an A to Z first-timer, and having fun. On this day of rest I'm making a point of visiting all the A to Z hosts... (love the comment in your 'comment request' bit about the teens - I got one too....)

my blog is storytellingmatters.wordpress.com. Happy a to z-ing, it's been fun to meet you (that about page is awesome) -- Jeri


Yvonne Ventresca said...

I like the idea that you can add toppings once you make room inside the shell. Thanks for sharing!

Yvonne

Susan Scott said...

I LOVE eggs any which way. Mashed with mayo and mustard, omgoodness don't get me started ...Easter marshmallow eggs ... mmm ..

Garden of Eden Blog

Erica Gore said...

Scrambled for me on hot buttery toast - but as a child I liked the soft boiled egg in a cup with Vegemite soldiers for dipping.
We had a china egg cup each, from the Peter Rabbit Royal Doulton collection, given to us on the occasion of our births by nanna. These were only used if she happened to be breakfasting with us. Otherwise we had plastic egg cups based on cartoon charters such as Bigs Bunny and Tweety Bird.

Perle said...

what a great memory. I haven't seen an eggcup since I was living in the Wadenhoe House in England in 1955. Loved my yolk soft and toast-dippable like my dad. The landlady didn't have any tabasco though, so I had to settle for black pepper.
Perle Champion at
Perle’s Ink,
freelance words & art

Unknown said...

Hi Tina,
Fun egg post! Belgians do the same thing. Except since they are bread loving people they slice toasted bread into thin strips and dip them into the soft boiled egg in the egg cup. With salt and pepper this is delicious! This month I'm writing about the Low Countries, which is where I lived and met my husband. Enjoy A-Z!
--Alicia

Amanda Lee said...

Hahahahahaha! You make me laugh -- in spite of being in my own personal tax hell right now. Picmonkey is totally intuitive. Super fun, super easy -- it's just about all I use anymore for basic photo edits. Have you played with collages yet?

I love the European style of breakfast. It's nice to start the day with protein and no blood sugar spike. When we do long weekend house parties at the beach house, I set out a buffet style breakfast on the last morning, with a giant bowl of boiled eggs, and an assortment of whatever is left in the fridge -- it's been a big hit. Maybe I will try kaviar and wasa and dill next time?