Of eggs and fruitcakes, a kitchen trick

            ‘Hannibal, what the F… did you do to that harmless egg?’ I asked in astonishment as I opened the lid of the pantry reed basket and beheld an egg which, for all I could tell, had unsuccessfully tried to commit hara-kiri.

            ‘I was making an omelette, Dedushka,’ the little guttersnipe spoke as if this were not an obvious occasion for shame, embarrassment and humble prostration. ‘So I broke two eggs in the bowl, and then I tried to break the third… But it was boiled. Hard boiled!’

            ‘Of course it was boiled, you oaf! Easter is just behind us. This one was left over from your dismal attempt to paint the Sistine Chapel on a round chalk surface!’

            ‘How was I to know? A boiled egg looks just the same as an un-boiled egg!’

            ‘No, it doesn’t! There is no gloss on a egg that’s been boiled!’

            ‘What’s a gloss? I’m only in 4^th grade. We don’t get agronomical engineering until 6^th grade.’

            ‘Oh, for crying out loud. What a bunch of useless undereducated Facebookies you young folks are! You mean to tell me you don’t know how to tell a boiled egg from a raw one?’

            ‘In the absence of a Gloss I have no idea,’ the nincompoop spoke with unabashed self-confidence.

            ‘Amazing… How will you jackanapes ever eat once the European Union forbids fast food on the whole continent? You couldn’t so much as boil water the correct way! Here, hand me an egg. One with gloss. And don’t drop it on my immaculately clean kitchen floor! Okay. Now watch and learn. You put the raw egg on a flat surface, and you twist it. And this is how it turns…’

            ‘Nothing doing, right? The thing won’t even turn twice around its lateral axis. Now give me that Nipponese egg you mistreated so badly. We try to do the same to that one, and look what happens…’

             ‘Beautiful spin, ain’t it? That’s how you tell a boiled egg from a raw one when in doubt. Simple comme bonjours.’

            ‘What a neat trick, Dedushka! The things you know! And it comes in so handy, too. You see: that omelette I made came out completely slurry because I fried it to little. Next time I know how to figure out if it’s done. I just take the frying pan and I give it a twist and if it really spins the tortilla is done! What a find!’

            ‘Oh cruel Gods in Heaven… Why do you punish me so horribly…!!!’

NOTA BENE: It turns out that the two videos posted above do not, well, turn well. To see a smoother version, kindly visit the Facebook page of my dear friend young Mr Missler, at  https://www.facebook.com/peter.missler?fref=nf

Mayo Label Collection: Saudi Mayonnaise (preview)

مايونيز

My faithful friend and fellow blogger Ms Azra Ali is as good as her word. Barely had she heard that the Marvellous Mittington Mayonnaise Label Collection was shamefully deficient in labels from Islamic countries, or she promised to try to fix the matter with some items from Saudi Arabia, where at present she resides. And Lo and Behold: not a week later old Alfred received the first pictures, taken by Smartphone in a Supermarket (Yes, dear reader: these decadent modernist gadgets occasionally serve a purpose worthy of better centuries!)

Kindly find below the pictures that she shared with all of us Mayonnaise lovers. As I have not been able to sample these sauces, my commentary must needs be brief, and concentrate on externals and packaging. And in that context, I may say that Saudi supermarkets are obviously just as bonkers as supermarkets in the rest of the world. On a single shelf, in a single shop, what do we find but Lemon Mayonnaise, Black Pepper Mayonnaise, Garlic Mayonnaise, Tikka Mayonnaise, ‘Lite’ Mayonnaise, and an enigmatic concoction labelled Mayochup of whose precise composition even my notorious curiosity is in no hurry to discover the seedy details (by the looks of it is contains tomato juice, so that would make it cocktail sauce without the – prohibited - whisky?)

‘And Mayonnaise, Alfred?’ I hear you ask. ‘Just the plain, honest, true, pure, authentic, dignified and delicious Sauce that served our Fathers and their Fathers before them? Do not Saudi supermarkets sell that??’

Well yes, dear reader, they do. But the ludicrous heights of Supermarket culinary perversion shows in the fact that they need to label that pure and honest product ‘Original’ Mayonnaise… As if it were something Sóóóóó 90s, so totally passé, stuffy stuff only good for old timers and folks who carry no Smartphone!

There is, dear reader, Original Sin. And there is Original Camembert and Champagne (i.e. from the region itself). But there is no ‘Original Mayonnaise’. There is Mayonnaise, tout court, pur sang. And then there are the mad abusive things that cynical manufacturers, unstopped by a conscience or the Diktats of the otherwise overregulating European Union, do to that Harmless Manna…

What else? Well: one thing to observe is the typical local fares and victuals depicted on the labels. In Saudi Arabia, Mayonnaise seems to be destined mainly for hamburgers, but we also find bites that look remarkably like Spanish croquetas and deep-fried shrimp, while – rather surprisingly – the Garlic Mayonnaise label suggests that its contents ought to be eaten with French Fries, which – not counting the garlic – is a typical Dutch tradition. There are also a few dishes which for the love of me I cannot place or recognize, but possibly Ms Azra can shed some light on those.

And talking of Light: one of these topsy-turvy plastic bottles actually contains a rather neat – if accidental – jeu de mots. The ‘Lite’ Mayonnaise, a marketing madness meant to lend people the illusion they can eat their Mayo and have a bathing suit body too, is produced by a brand named ‘Noor’. Now ‘Noor’ in Arabic means Light, as in illumination. But of course Lite (as in featherweight) really ought to be written ‘Light’ as well in any spelling worthy of Shakespeare’s language. So that here we are offered Light Light Mayonnaise… Is that overdoing it? Oh well, A Rose is a Rose is a Rose by any other name, Rite?

Enough! With a little luck, in the near future, Alfred B Mittington will be in a position to offer you some more interesting details as to the State of Mayo in the Kingdom of Saud.

PS Oh, talking about dumb labels, allow me to point out one more hilarious example. The ‘American Garden US Mayonnaise’ proudly shouts at the customer that is was ‘Born in the USA’. How, I wonder, is a sauce ever BORN? Mayonnaise comes from an egg, and eggs are not born. So the phrase really ought to read: ‘Laid in the USA!’ And why oh why, I wonder, did the yankee manufacturer not write THAT on his label??