Dave Wood

Now that U of M professor Ancel Keyes is long gone as well as his bogus research on cholesterol, which led us to challenge so many foods we dearly love, I think it’s about time for me write a tribute to one of nature’s great gifts to both culture and gastronomy, known as THE EGG. It’s a gift to culture because long ago the eminent designer Raymond Loewy designated the egg as “nature’s most perfect design” from shell to white to yolk. 

To gastronomy? Simple: eggs are relatively inexpensive and available to the table of anyone, rich or poor, and there are innumerable ways to prepare the wondrous ovum—as long as one doesn’t overcook it which so many do, including me, which leads to me cursing over my breakfast and sending the BW out of earshot. 

I finally learned about proper egg cooking when I got a job tending bar at the Hotel Eau Claire, where one morning, Maury, the hotel’s Yale University-trained chef served me scrambled eggs that swirled around on the plate and were the consistency of lutefisk.   

“You didn’t cook them, Maury,’’ I whined. “I scrambled them the way they were supposed to be scrambled, dummy!” replied the old grump.   

They were delicious and from that morning forward I never looked back. When I arrived in Ohio for grad school, a roommate and I discovered a store where eggs were 29 cents a dozen and pink big bologna was 39 cents a ring. Thus was born the Wood-Goldsmith “Pig Bladder Omelet,” which consisted of the pink bologna encased around Chef Maury’s Eggs by Yale, to be eaten at Bowling Green State, a long way from the Ivy League. Nevertheless, our 68-cent purchase at Sentry Grocery fed us for a week, Boola, Boola! 

Various permutations followed, including “The Western,” an entire large chopped onion scrambled with two beaten eggs and fried in Parkay margarine (25 cents a pound). “The Potpourri:” bits and pieces of anything in our fridge that didn’t seem rotten, beaten into scrambled eggs and fried in grease rendered from a Sentry package called “Bacon Ends” (garnish with crispy fat detritus from frying pan). I eventually graduated, got a teaching job and could afford, barely, to buy cookbooks and real butter (take that, Ancel Keyes!)  

Despite my newfound wealth I continued my quest for new recipes for the edible, unforgettable egg. On our first trip to Europe, Beautiful Wife and I fell in fell in love with “Carbonara,” which is beaten egg, heavy on black pepper, poured over hot bacon grease and boiled Bucatini pasta, then tossed. In Germany we gorged on Bouef Tartare, which is hand-chopped beef tenderloin mixed with a whole unbeaten raw egg, minced anchovy (take it easy) and garlic.                                                                                                                                                               wewIn Eggs are so versatile that the French can even make Pain Perdu (French Toast) taste tolerable, if you would only soak the stale bread overnight submerged in lots of beaten eggs, milk and as much Cointreau liqueur as you can afford.       

But eggs are expensive now you say? Eighty percent of my father’s diet was eggs. Why? “Because they’re a damned good buy. Besides, I never get sick of them.’’ Good buy is right, Dad. B.W. just came home from the new Ptacek’s store in River Falls, where eggs were $3.09 per dozen. Poach two in boiling water, Dad, and you’d have a breakfast for 50 cents because the decimal that is left over will pay for salt and current! Bon Appetit! Or would that be Bon Ouefatit? 

Dave would like to hear from you. Phone him at 715-426-9554.   

P.S. I didn’t have room for “One Eyes,” huevos rancheros, eggs devilled ten ways, (ground Spam, chopped radish and horseradish, dill, onion, caper, Tabasco (ish), caviar, smoked salmon, (or many of the above all at once!)