Guys, did you know that cooking eggs in a certain manner is problematic? I know you're shocked—something utterly meaningless being denounced for violating whichever principle we happen to be adhering to this day? No!—but really, it's true. Of course, the central struggle of our times is determining how, exactly, it's problematic. Which tenet of intersectionality does it most egregiously violate? Is said method classist (and, therefore, probably racist, given the overrepresentation of minorities in the lower economic classes)? Or is it, gasp, sexist to criticize said method of cooking eggs?
Let's find out!
The method of cooking eggs in question involves an "egg spoon," or an insanely expensive iron spoon that cradles the egg in a fire pit. I guess. I wouldn't have any idea because this seems like a nutso way to cook an egg when you can literally scramble one in minutes. But I digress. The egg spoon, according to the New York Times, is a dreadfully classist way of cooking:
"She’s Pol Pot in a muumuu," [Anthony Bourdain] was reported to have said at a New York food festival shortly afterward. "I saw her on ‘60 Minutes.’ She used six cords of wood to cook one egg for Lesley Stahl."
The lines were drawn. On one side were those who viewed cooking an egg over a fire as the embodiment of food elitism and all that is annoying about the Slow Food movement. Only people who are very rich or very poor have fireplaces in their kitchens, critics said. Where is a working parent supposed to find the time?
My God! This is horrible! To think of all the poor people who will be shamed because they can't, um, start a fire and let it burn down and then stick an absurdly costly spoon into the embers. Can you imagine what the other moms will say? This is truly grotesque.
But not as grotesque as, say, shaming women for indulging in this especially silly brand of upper class twittery.
But social context is everything. This is the post-Harvey Weinstein era, when gender imbalance, assault and harassment in professional kitchens have been laid bare. The egg spoon has caught a ride on a new wave of kitchen feminism. Egg-spoon haters now find themselves under attack.
Wow, so, it's not okay to point out that this idiotic waste of time and resources is in fact idiotic? Why not?
"Is it any more practical to sous-vide an egg? No," she said. "But it’s this amazing thing because a man is using it." Consider the chef Dan Barber of Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, N.Y. When he celebrates these same ideals, she said, "he gets a hagiographic ‘Chef’s Table’ episode. It pisses me off."
I mean, she has a point: sous-vide is also a complete asinine, time-wasting way to cook an egg. Congratulations: you're all completely f—ing awful.
Guess what. The manner in which you cook your eggs has no political or ideological valence except for the political/ideological valence that your emotional and intellectual baggage brings to the table. It doesn't matter. Note: I'm not opposed to slightly fancier methods of cooking in some areas of our lives—mushrooms in a cast iron skillet > all other mushrooms—but eggs are eggs. They're eggs. THEY ARE JUST EGGS. It is neither classist nor sexist to criticize one way or the other. More importantly, though, all of these methods are a stupid waste of your most precious resource: time and the rapidly diminishing amount of it you have on this godforsaken patch of soil we call Earth. Here's how you make an egg:
- Crack eggs into bowl.
- Whisk with fork.
- Heat skillet—preferably the cheapest, crappiest nonstick you can find—and add butter.
- Pour whisked egg into skillet.
- Scramble that egg, scramble it good and hard.
- Slide onto plate, salt and pepper to taste.
The whole process takes, roughly, 180 seconds. And, as a bonus, you don't have to worry about whether or not you've become some sort of Mini Weinstein or Mini Pol Pot. You can just eat your eggs in peace, confident in the fact that our society is weak and feckless and looking for reasons to eat itself alive.