At the breakfast table today, while savouring my favoured toast and cheese omelette combo, in between coffee sips, I found myself mulling over the vexed question as to what came first. Did the shell have precedence over the feather, in a manner of speaking ? Food can, often, be a precursor to sublime thoughts. If a soldier can bravely march on his stomach across vast geographies from Macedonia to Tigris and Euphrates and Isaac Newton can, in a sense, “egg” time to boil over, food clearly assumes precedence over all else.
Returning to the ubiquitous egg, without which many breakfasts the world over would be incomplete despite the dietician’s proscription, its role is unjustly that of Trishanku, an euphemism for being neither here nor there. It clearly seems unfair to deny its rightful place to something that, with time and some degree of indulgence, would not only have plenty to crow about but would also rule the roost, literally speaking. One should spare a thought for the oval white “tempter” with infinite powers of metamorphosis on its own without having to break out of its shell into its final evolutionary form. It has a family tree that branches off extensively into, inter alia, the unassuming boiled egg, the irresistible omelette or scrambled versions, the unputdownable egg devil, the delectable French toast, or the poached form with sunny side up or down variants. And, thereafter, with a modicum of incubated indulgence, emerge from its shell in its morphed final form to curriy favour with the gourmet via an unending list of recipes.
Clearly, in a world where even the proverbial devil gets its due, this flexible “angel” that, in its myriad forms, caters to taste buds at the breakfast table should justifiably be given its pride of place and plate. While the vegetarian keeps off egg as forbidden non-vegetarian fare, the non-vegetarian, ironically, does the same during lunch or dinner when chicken, mutton or fish distractions are available. It’s a case of devaluation not in years, months or weeks, but in those few hours between breakfast and lunch/ dinner. Paradoxically, for non-vegetarians, the most preferred food at breakfast becomes, often, the most abjured item at lunch or dinner. Such fickleness provides food for thought on the pronounced discriminatory approach that drives an invisible but palpable wedge between egg and chicken. As an intermediary between die-hard vegetarians and no-holds-barred non-vegetarians is the third category of gourmands masquerading as ‘eggitarians’. They confine themselves within the boundaries of vegetarian fare and “eggy” stuff while scrupulously refraining from infiltrating to non-vegetarian options.
In sum, it would seem logical to question why the egg should be at the cusp of vegetarian and non-vegetarian fare, with chicken ensconced in the latter segment, when both belong to the same genus. On a lighter note, till such time that the perennial riddle as to who or what came first is solved, there may be a case for an equitable “egg-alitarian” approach based on objective assessment. Foodies, on their part, may unwittingly provide the answer as they smugly settle for that fluffy omelette for breakfast and, hours later, have no qualms about gorging on chicken dopiazza for lunch. The case rests.
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