Egg You On
We’re all barreling helplessly toward World Egg Day, being Oct. 14, which we know is a bit of a ways away, but we’d like to talk about it now. Why? Well, we like eggs. We know, vegans, you don’t like that we do, but it’s gotten to a point where we go into Sagche’s Coffee House, and the dudes at the counter ask, “The usual?” The usual being an egg sandwich with lettuce, onion, tomato and their special sauce—plus fries—a sammie we eat and then feel sated all day.
Sure, they’re one of those foods where you might sometimes wonder who the hell decided to first eat them, how the hell they decided to first cook them and, at times, how it’s just plain weird to eat birds and the things that come out of them, but if you’ve ever had a nicely scrambled egg or, like, an egg poached just right, you know what we’re laying down.
AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! A TOTALLY ACCURATE AND IN NO WAY JOKEY LESSON ON THE EGG! GAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Did you know the color of the egg yolk and/or the shell don’t much have an affect on the taste? While true that organic eggs, or those that come from chickens who aren’t tortured in factory farms, tend to taste better, it’s more about quality of life than color. Beyond that, the breed of chicken pretty much dictates the color of the egg. We’re not chicken scientists, though, so we couldn’t possibly tell you what colors correspond to what chickens. In fact, the only chicken we’re particularly familiar with is Foghorn Leghorn. Try to work out our age now, ya buncha jabronis.
That’s lucky, because eggs are actually good for your vision. True story. See, eggs contain the carotenoid lutein, which not only helps prevent cataracts, but also help keep your eyeball muscles strong. At the rate we eat eggs, we’re mildly surprised we can’t see through a fucking steel sheet. They’re also packed with choline, which promotes cell activity, which is good for some reason. What are we? A doctor? In related info, egg yolks naturally contain vitamin D, and we understand not a lot of things do that. We’d make a vitamin D joke, but y’all are a bunch of prudes. Just imagine it. It was awesome.
The more a hen ages, the larger its eggs become, and given that many lay between 300 and 325 per year, we’d imagine that becomes a pretty big bummer later in life. Our grandma grew up on a farm, and we asked her what happened to the chickens who stopped laying eggs. She started toward the horizon, pulled a long drag from her cigarillo and said, simply, “Ate ‘em.”
You might think ostriches or emus lay the largest eggs around, but you’re forgetting dinosaurs. Their eggs are bigger. Jurassic Park is a documentary, right? Anyway, while true that those eggs are among the biggest, New Zealand’s kiwi lays the largest egg in relation to the size of its body. We’re not math geniuses, but we’re picturing it almost like a human giving birth to an ottoman. What’s that? Childbirth is an incredible miracle and that people who can get pregnant manage to do it is amazing? We agree! Y’all who can get pregnant should hang out with kiwis.
Duck eggs are better for baking than chicken eggs. True story. They’re higher in fat, which makes things tastier. Of course, you’re not ready to have that piece of information yet, no sir. You’re gonna just keep doing what you’ve always done when baking. Where do you even get duck eggs, right? We know, we’re just not telling.
How about a little interesting egg-based etymology? You’re thrilled?! US, TOO! OK, here we go: Did you know the word “yolk” derives from the old English “geolu” or “geolwe?” Well, it’s true. See, these words evolved over time to become the word “yellow,” the color of—get this—most egg yolks (fuck outta here, orange yolks!) Anyway, those old English words themselves were derived from the proto-Germanic “gelwaz,” and while that last bit has nothing to do with eggs, we just think people should know.
Lastly, something a little more practical that our grandma told us after she wept over her departed chickens: If’n you ever drop an egg on the floor, sprinkle it liberally with a little salt and baking soda and wait a couple mins—it’ll turn the yolk and albumen (being the whites of the eggs) into an easier-to-sweep bit of goo. Thanks for the tip, grandma! See you in hell!
How do you like your eggs?
Commercials in the 1990s were wild. It was always, like, people being really active and going to town on eggs or Mountain Dew or, like, Doritos. OH. OUR. GOD. Did we just invent a new drink? One with eggs and Mountain Dew and Doritos? Wait, no. That sounds horrible.
Also
-According to its Facebook page, Santa Fe vegan joint Plant Base Café is outta here. Apparently, things have been going well for its Taos location, but the local one’s moving to greener pastures in Albuquerque. Too bad. Place kinda slapped for takeout. Your win, ABQ, we guess.
-Put your fears to rest about Door 38 Pizza, the Detroit style pizzeria from the Burger Stand people. People kept asking us if it was gonna close for some reason, and what we know right now is that it’s not going to close. Rest easy.
-An unidentified woman from New Mexico was reportedly detained at the US/Mexico border for trying to smuggle in more than 100 pounds of undeclared cheese. We have some stringent cheese laws here, so that makes sense insofar as anyone telling you what kinds of cheeses you may own makes sense. Good job, border cops—you stopped people from having awesome quesadillas and stuff.
-If you caught our cool new rap lyrics “various areas” from a Fork or two ago, we’ve been expanding it with more words. Our rap now goes: “Petting terriers in various areas like aircraft carriers and upscale terraces.” God, this rap we’re writing, which admittedly has very little to do with food, is so good.
-All the cheers to Albuquerque’s Tikka Space, which we hear swept the Edible New Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Smackdown’s Judge’s Award plus the Reigning Chomp and People’s Choice Awards last weekend with its amazing-looking GCCB—that’s green chile cheeseburger, only we used the initials to save time. Now then, Tikka Spice’s GCCB—which again, we’re using to save time and space—looked incredible according to the photo we saw on Facebook. Actually, let’s just get that in here real quick. Just one moment. Okayyyyyyyyyy.........here:
brianna@sfreporter.com
Dang, that looks good. Anyway, Tikka Spice is basically two food trucks in ABQ, and it’s run by Pakistani immigrants. Just think of all the ways immigrants make our lives better. Did you think about it? Cool. Now add this burger to your list. Uggggggghhhhh—are we about to eat red meat just for this burger? What do you think, vegans? Any chance you’d be willing to write and be mean to us about it? We look forward to it. Visit the Tikka Spice site right here. It’s notable that the day y’all receive this edition of Le Fork will be Sept. 15, which just so happens to be National Double Cheeseburger Day. It’s also National Creme de Menthe Day and National Linguini Day, and if’n you’re looking to destroy your gut, you’ll celebrate all three at once. Creme de menthe burger...is that anything? It’s not? Cool. Honestly, though, we could see sipping on a CDM—which we’re using in place of creme de menthe to save time and space—after chomping a burg. Or, like, putting some in one of them McDonald’s Shamrock Shakes. We capitalized that as we assume “Shamrock Shake” is a proper noun. What were we talking about again? Oh, right. Burgers. Congrats, Tikka Spice. Y’all did it!
You ever wanna trip out? Just look up the deal with Sonic the Hedgehog’s Dr. Eggman (aka Robotnik). We think you’ll lose your dang mind! We know you’ll never look it up, though. Thanks for nothing.
More Tidbits
-Pumpkin spice stuff is back with a fucking vengeance, so just know that when you’re out there getting things. Usually we don’t care that much because we eat pumpkin stuff every chance we get all the time, fall or no, but Le Forkette did bring home some Tate’s Pumpkin Spice cookies, which we didn’t hate. Take a gander here.
-More bad news out of the UK, where any Royal Warrants (in short, an honor/logo granted to food and drink brands that the crown is all about consuming) from Queen Elizabeth (an ancient woman you never met once and have no real connection to, but for some reason love sooooooo much despite mankind’s ancient history of making fun of powerful people who’ve died) are now null and void. If you somehow read that confusing jumble of words from before and are still with us, know that there are/were reportedly hundreds of them, too, and they’ll all have to stop using that Royal Arms logo on their stuff within the next two years. Tough blow, Britannia! Maybe Charles will check out your weird vegetable spreads and constipation cookies and boiled meats and such and grant you new ones? Maybe he wants to hand out some Palace hype to whatever baked beans are around? MAYBE HE IS ABOUT TO GO OUT INTO THE WORLD AND GIVE OUT WARRANTS TO WHATEVER THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH BREAKFAST OVER THERE? Jeeze! #BritishFoodIsGross
-The absolute dorkus malorkuses at Delish-dot-com sampled and ranked 30 types of Oreos. There are 30?!?! We thought there were, like, regular ones and the others which we like to call “Little Thickies.” You know, with more cream? You’re out of control, Oreo. You need to go home and go to bed. GO TO BED, OREO!
-Have you heard about pink sauce? It’s apparently a thing because of TikTok (which itself is a thing because the world is a terrible place and we are no longer afraid to die), and there’s evidence that suggests that its popularity might have something to do with how much people just like pink foods. Who among us never chugged a thing of Strawberry Quik? Or Pepto Bismol, because it also tastes great? Anyway, the nerdlingers over at Popsugar-dot-com asked a flavorist (which is apparently a real job) what is up with that, and she was basically—and we’re paraphrasing here—all like, “People like pink food, man.” Cool. We’re into it.
-Oh, dang, food website Chowhound-dot-com appears to have gone the way of the Dodo—by which we mean the old Warner Bros. cartoon, which was way more interesting than that dumb old bird who was more interested in dying than being cool—and there’s a sad little thank you missive on the page and nothing else. Pour one out for the food websites that don’t make it.
A Totally Scientific Breakdown of The Fork’s Correspondence
In the print edition of SFR this week, find the tale of Tesuque Village Market, where one can dump fries on their food.
Number of Letters Received
29
*You jabronis are REALLY into the State Fair, huh?
Most Helpful Tip of the Week (a barely edited letter from a reader)
“Can you help me log back into FaCEBOOk?”
*Absolutely not.
Actually Helpful Tip(s)
“The best part of the Fair for me is the pies!! You haven’t even been to the Fair if you miss them. Wonderful, delicious choices!!!”
*We appreciate the hot tip from reader Jan D., who also gets that using a million exclamation points is the only way to get one’s point across, and that pies are better than cakes.
Eggdubitably...wait, that didn’t work at all,
The Fork
