Tag: egg recipes

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Ruby’s Roadhouse Omelette

While I worked in west Florida during the 1980s, I came to know people from all over the world. Then there was Ruby Ruth Reese, a down-home girl who grew up in what she called “the woargrass (wiregrass)” region of south Alabama.

Ruby Ruth (“Call me ‘Roo’”) had a heart of gold, but she was just as mean as she could be to all those displaced Yankees we worked with in Florida. She liked me because, as she once put it, “You’re just tryin’ to do right and make a place for yourself.” She even claimed to have relatives in Tupelo, but I think she just said that because she knew I was homesick all the time.

Roo told me she worked in a truck stop in Geneva County, Alabama during the Sixties, and if they knew you well enough, and you ordered something “to go”, you’d pay five dollars more, and they’d slip you a bottle of whiskey under the counter before you left. They also made what they called ham and egg pie that most of their customers would order to eat by themselves. Roo often made these for us to share on our lunch, which we took around two in the afternoon when we’d had a busy day. I’ve fancied it up a little bit with the cheddar cheese (she used American slices). She’d fuss at me for that.

For two people, beat very well four large eggs with  a half cup of milk. Stir in diced onion, cooked potatoes, ham, and grated cheddar. Heat an 6-in. skillet, add a big lump of butter. Once butter is sizzling, add half the egg mixture, shaking the pan as you do. Once eggs begin to set, top with a little more grated cheese and pop into a hot (400) oven until firm and lightly brown.

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Elitist Eggs

One of our most enduring social mechanisms is that by which elitism becomes far more ostensibly manifest in people who come from humble backgrounds.

Take for example any given one of those Upper East Side hipsters who infest the trendier corners of New York City and act as if they’re the apex of the social universe when in fact most if not all of them grew up in a fly-over state and moved to the city in hopes of sharing a line of coke with Ivanka Trump.

A less current but perhaps more familiar example would be Craig Claiborne, who grew up in a boarding house in Indianola, Mississippi, and eventually became the arbiter of culinary taste for the nation. Claiborne’s excesses in his disregard for the “little people” were such that he was chastised by Pope Paul VI for a $4000 dinner for two in Paris he enjoyed with his partner Pierre Franey in 1975.

L’Osservatore Romano deplored the swinish display while millions were starving, the French press noted that the price of the meal represented a year’s wages for most workers,  and American columnist Harriet Van Horne wrote–no doubt with some degree of smugness–“This calculated evening of high-class piggery offends an average American’s sense of decency. It seems wrong morally, aesthetically and in every other way”.

Claiborne was nonplussed, of course, which is the typical reaction of snobs to their extravagant self-indulgences. “Let them eat cake,” indeed.

Given this display of culinary snootery, it’s somewhat of a surprise that we find on page 312 of Claiborne’s The New York Times Cookbook–after a whole slew of soufflés and between two egg curries–a recipe for pickled eggs, which are to most people the least sophisticated dish in the world. Is this a chink in Claiborne’s Tiffany armor?

Perhaps, but then again perhaps not; one recipe I have from a Junior League-type cookbook published in the 1930’s claims that they’re “ever so good chopped into hash, and provide just the right touch bedded on greens with a dressing of sharp, spicy goodness.” Maybe pickled eggs acquired the blue-collar brush after they became a snack staple in Southern pool halls and honky-tonks; then again, maybe that’s where they got their start.

For every half dozen boiled eggs, bring to heat 1 cup water, 1/2 cup vinegar, 1 tablespoon mixed pickling spices, 2 slices ginger root, a crushed clove of garlic, and a tablespoon salt. Mull, cover eggs with spiced vinegar water, seal and set aside for at least 2 days.

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New Stage Baked Eggs

Another dazzling recipe from Standing Room Only, the stellar entertainment cookbook published by Jackson, Mississippi’s New Stage Theatre in 1983.

The original recipe states that this breakfast casserole can be prepared the night before and refrigerated, but just don’t. It also calls for a sprinkling of chopped black olives, which is a nice touch.

Beat six eggs in two cups of whole milk, add a teaspoon of dry mustard and two cups grated cheddar. Butter a 9×13 casserole and cover the bottom in a layer of herbed croutons, pour in egg and cheese mixture, and top with crumbled, cooked bacon.

Bake at 350 on a middle rack until lightly browned and springy, about 45 minutes. I like it with a little sour cream.