| RECIPE
|
|
18. "Surprise" Eggs.
When I was young culinary, as surprises
were common :
at present one scarcely ever meets with one ;
which fact
induces in my mind the conclusion that the England
of
sixty years ago was a much merrier England than
the ex-
isting prim, overdressed, Mrs. Grundy-ridden
country of my
birth. At all events, the culinary " surprises
" were as
innocent as they were clever. They made us laugh
; and
every wise doctor will tell you that laughter
helps digestion.
Good digestion means happiness and virtue. One-third
o»
the crime in this world springs from congenital
causes :
the sins of the fathers are literally visited
on the children.
Another third is due to the direct, although
inscrutable,
instrumentality of the Devil. Fur the rest indigestion
is
mainly responsible. Indigestion had quite as
much to do
as had Madame de Mainteun in inducing the superstitious
glutton, Louis XIV., to revoke the Edict of Nantes.
The
digestion of Napoleon the Great was normally
deplorable;
and I should not be in the least astonished if
indigestion
were, au fond, the cause of the murder of the
Duc d'Enghien.
Thackeray told me that he was suffering from
an atrocious
attack of indigestion when he wrote that bullying
letter to
Edmund Yates which eventuated in the egpulsion
of the
latter from the Garrick Club-a social slur which
he never
got over ; and whenever Edmund, whom I knew for
thirty
years, and who was the warmest-hearted and most
can-
tankerous of mankind, used to sneer at or " pitch
into " me
in the World, I always set down his abuse to
the account of
indigestion.
Now, after this long preamble, for “a
surprise eggs." Poach
your eggs and trim the edges neatly. Let them
remain for
a quarter of an hour in the pan, with lemon juice,
pepper,
salt, and a little chopped parsley. Then fry
them in batter
precisely as though they were fritters, and serve
hot on a,
napkin garnished with parsley.
|
|
| TABLE
OF CONTENTS |
| Click
here
to return to the table of contents of The Thorough Good Cook.
|
|
| HOME
|
|
Return
home to
Eat Dangerously Central! Many more cookbooks and websites
await your clicks! |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
