For all my
growing-up years, breakfast meant the same three things: bread, eggs, and milk.
It was non-negotiable. An egg each morning was a ritual my father followed
unfailingly, and continues to follow even now, nearing ninety.
I, however,
never shared his enthusiasm. Poached eggs were far too gooey. Omelettes were
worse, filled with offensively large chunks of onion. My mother, determined to
get some protein into me, settled on the only remaining option: the boiled egg.
I ate it with deep reluctance, so much so that if she was distracted, I would
quietly slip it into the dustbin.
Years later,
after raising two children and a husband (who comes from an egg-loving family) I
have made my peace with eggs. Not entirely, but enough. Poached eggs remain a
firm no. But scrambled eggs, cooked my way, vegetables chopped into near
invisibility, fried until crisp, with a dash of soy, are something I genuinely
enjoy. Omelettes are acceptable too, provided nothing inside them announces its
presence. And boiled eggs? They are my fallback when I don’t feel like cooking.
My father, on
the other hand, comes from a generation where men stayed out of the kitchen.
Their culinary authority came not from experience, but from comparison, “My
mother made it best.” But he always liked to think of himself as different.
Naturally talkative, he gathered recipes and techniques from anyone willing to
share, storing them carefully and building elaborate theories around them.
Over the
years, he has explained to us (often in great detail) how easy it is to make
rasgullas, how simple it is to make cottage cheese, how perfectly one can
prepare sugar syrup. During his time in Malaysia, living with housemates after
retirement, he even claimed to have made parathas from scratch. His repertoire
is vast: roast chicken, baingan bharta, fish roasted over a campfire you’ve
caught yourself. As children, we believed him unquestioningly. As adults, we
began to understand that his knowledge is impeccable, but entirely theoretical. I realized that he is a theoretical physicist! The ingredients are right
but following the method is dicey.
These days,
life has slowed him down. A fractured leg, age, fading hearing; all have made
him dependent in ways he never was before. He lives with my sister, who ensures
he gets enough protein through the day. The highlight of his evening is still
his egg.
But not just
any egg.
For years,
his breakfast egg was fried just so, the white crisp, the yolk soft and
gelatinous. Hard-boiled eggs, therefore, are unacceptable. What he wants is a
perfectly half-boiled egg.
Since he can
no longer make it himself, he instructs the cook.
“The water
must be boiling before you put the egg in.”
She nods,
already thinking about how much milk she can spare for her tea.
“Boil it for
exactly seven minutes.”
Another nod.
Whether she owns a watch is doubtful, though she does have a mobile phone.
“Then take it
out, put it in cold water, peel it, and bring it with salt and pepper.”
By now, she
has left the room.
In the
kitchen, she fills a pan with water, drops the egg in before it even warms up,
and lets it boil for as long as it takes her to prepare her tea. The result is
inevitable: a hard, grey, overcooked egg.
My father is
disappointed. The yolk is no longer soft, it is solid, lifeless. He repeats his
instructions the next day, and the day after that. Sometimes the cook changes,
and the process begins again. But so far, the perfect half-boiled egg has
remained elusive.
It must be frustrating that the person you are
instructing lets all the sound bytes slip in and out of her ears without
retaining even a miniscule amount of it. But the as we grow older and infirm we
do get dependent on someone for something. It is less frustrating if we were to
accept the imperfect world and its imperfect activities rather than whipping
ourselves to try and reach a perfect destination
Perhaps the
perfect egg is no longer the point.
Perhaps, in
the end, it is about accepting the imperfect ones—the overboiled, unyielding
eggs of an imperfect world—and learning, gently, to live with them.
