Eggs may served with panzanella (bread salad).
The two dishes perfectly complemented each other
for a really good, light supper.
Usually,
I share a recipe after I’ve tried it, but I’m reversing that today. Tonight’s
supper will be the panzanella salad I reported on a couple of weeks ago and oeufs
mayo, a staple in French cafes. It looks easy and foolproof—I may be jinxing
myself with that statement, and Lord knows enough has gone wrong in the last
few days, that I don’t need any more mishaps. But the real reason I am
including it today it’s because in a Gastro Obscura newsletter, I found a
fascinating history of, say it in English, eggs mayonnaise.
Before
you dismiss this with, “I make deviled eggs all the time,” please know that
those pale before eggs mayo. To begin with, the eggs must be cooked just so,
neither too runny nor too hard. The recommendation is to bring water to a boil,
immediately turn the burner to simmer, and let it cook precisely 8 minutes, 40
seconds. Then immediately plunge into an ice bath to stop the cooking. Any
longer and the yolks develop that greenish-gray ring around the outside that we’ve
all seen. I usually let eggs linger in that ice bath until cold and then
refrigerate, but that won’t work with eggs mayo. As soon as you can handle
them, peel, cut in half, but do not scrape out the yolk.
Serve
the eggs, which should be almost warm, with a dollop of mayonnaise. Homemade
mayo is preferable, but I plan to cheat (it’s been that kind of a day) and thin
some Duke’s mayo with a bit of lemon. The thing is you “dress” the eggs—the New
York Times recipe suggests capers and anchovies, which sounds good to me.
The roasted red pepper strips not so much. But a sprinkling of minced green
onion tops sounds both showy and delicious.
The
French treasure this dish so much that there is now L’Association du
sauvegard de l’oeuf mayonnaise—The Egg Mayo Protection Association, which
holds an annual competition for the world championship. French bistros began
serving this delicacy in the early twentieth century. The bistros were where
the working-class immigrants could eat on the cheap, and eggs were inexpensive
to serve. Over the years, the dish’s popularity and its price remained relatively
stable, but the popularity of bistro cafes declined and many closed. In the
eighties, the world went cholesterol crazy and named eggs as a principal food
to be avoided. Bistros, already struggling, cut them from the menu. French food
critic Claude Lebey went to battle, declaring eggs as “indispensable to cuisine
as the paperclip is to the office.” So he created the association to preserve
the dish.
Lebey
retired in 2013, and the association languished until 2018 when his grandson,
Vincent Brenot persuaded three friends to join him in taking up the cause.
Brenot may have had his tongue in his cheek, but after no time at all the revived
association had 500 members, everyone from professional chefs to amateurs.
Today, each member gets a card entitling him to one free egg mayo serving at
the restaurant of the winning chef. Of course, if the restaurant is in
Australia, as it once was, that may present a problem for the average French
citizen.
Not
familiar with Gastro Obscura? There’s a weekly newsletter, a website offering
stories, travel opportunities, courses on the world’s most the world’s most
wondrous food and drink. No restaurant reviews, recipes, or interviews with chefs,
and no news of current food trends. But stories like why the bagel is a food
fad in Israel or how to fry crickets or, well, the saving of oeufs mayo—they’re
all there. And now there’s a hardback book “loaded with incredible ingredients,
food adventures, and edible wonders from around the world” (I just happen to
have received a copy of the book as a birthday gift). If your interest is
piqued, check out the website: Welcome
to Gastro Obscura - Gastro Obscura (atlasobscura.com)..
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