Egg. Fried. Perfect.
A fried egg is as close to God’s original menu for Adam and Eve as anything I can think of. A fried egg sandwich will forgive several types of low-ranking sins and perhaps a big one if you fry it good enough.
Want a better burger? Slap a fried egg on it. Looking for a way to turn regular old potato salad into a prize-winning side dish? Chop up a fried egg in there. Nestle a fried egg up against shrimp and grits or cuddle it under a catfish plate and wait for the compliments. Of course, if you have no other option, fry some bacon, then the egg right behind it. Guaranteed to shorten your life by a few years, but those are probably years at the end you would rather sluff off anyway. Fried eggs are like optional equipment on a car. Just go ahead and add it and be done with it. You’ll enjoy the road a lot more with a fried egg riding beside you.
I’ve seen people put fried eggs on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and sunny-side-up a lemon meringue pie. A woman in Opp, Alabama used to wrap wieners in fried eggs. Called it “pigs in a rooster jacket.” A friend in Chicago puts them on hotdogs. A woman in Baltimore makes a pizza with fried eggs, but I cannot for the life of me imagine that one. Still, I would try it if given the chance. I’m telling you, if you want to impress a first date or your boss or turn and enemy into a friend, serve something with a fried egg on it. Keep in mind, though, if someone offers you a fried deviled egg, stay away from it. The devil part is in the details.
The strangest one I’ve seen is an entry in the Covington County Fair back in the 1970’s where a woman shellacked a fried egg, glued it to a small piece of plywood painted like a sunrise with the egg as the sun — and she won a blue ribbon. As She walked away with $7.50 in prize money, I saw the jealousy in the faces of the losers, of whom I was one.
“It is why people are so friendly in the South: fried eggs,” said a cook at a restaurant outside Tuscaloosa back around Christmas. “A biscuit pinching a slice of country ham and a fried egg gets even angry people to smile.” Not sure it would get a Crimson Tide fan to believe the end of that Auburn game was not a fluke, but you cannot blame an egg for that.
I do have to draw the line at one practice my uncle used to do. He put a fried egg on his fried chicken. To me that is just overkill of the lifespan of a hen. Do not mix the fried embryo with the full-grown crusty bird. “Just ain’t right,” as my daddy used to say. But then again, he ate that egg on my uncle’s fried chicken, so he must have been talking about something else. I still cannot do it. But I will eat a fried egg in chicken salad. So I am not much better now that I think about it.
A guitar-playing friend of mine just posted a pic on Facebook of a double-yoker he cracked open this morning. Said it is good luck. I have never been that lucky. It explains a lot of things in my life.
I met a trucker in Pittsburgh recently who did not believe in the sanctity of fried eggs. His fowl religion was boiled eggs.
“The original, portable food source,” he said, pulling one out of his pocket and thumping it on his belt buckle and peeling it, flicking the slivers of shell out his truck window into the parking lot. “And that wrapper on the ground is biodegradable, so I’m helping the environment by littering.”
Fried eggs are working folks’ food. How can you tell? Try to get a fancy place like Ruth’s Chris to ease a fried egg over the top of your steak. Will not happen. Promise. But go to a hole-in-the-wall joint owned by anybody named Earl or Mama or Big Hank and ask for a “yellow yoke in a white coat” and they’ll know exactly what you mean. I hope.
