How to Use an Egg Topper
Perhaps you were raised in an egg cup family. A family where cold cereal, toaster pastries, store-bought powdered doughnuts, OJ from concentrate, and margarine spread were considered pitiable, or at least unfortunate breakfast fare. A family wherein some human applied heat to eggs each morning, and which was in possession of serving vessels and implements specifically designed to optimize your breakfast consumption. That’s so lovely for you. Please enjoy your marmalades, curds, freshly-squeezed nectars, and fancy-ass toast soldiers. The rest of us will be hunched over here, clutching at rusks and clumpy oatmeal and trying to figure out how to use an egg topper.
Egg toppers! That the name for the implement egg cup people use to neatly snip the ends from their perfectly soft-boiled eggs, which they nestle into the hollows of cunningly shaped crockery and serve alongside toast that’s been sliced and trimmed just so. They dip these toast soldiers into the golden, viscous center of the erect egg, nibble, sigh contentedly as they sink into the cushions of their gold-plated thrones, and flip the page of their neatly-ironed newspaper to catch up on yacht prices and polo scores while we bash at shells with hammers and knife handles like breakfasting primates. All that’s left are shards of shell, jagged edges, and famished resignation.
But we can learn their ways and attempt to assimilate. There are two basic kinds of egg toppers: belled and scissor-style. The former is a handle with a bell-shaped end that fits over the end of the egg, which has been snuggled and braced for safety. If it’s spring-loaded, a few pulls on the handle will create perforations around the circumference, turning the top of the egg into a small saucer that can easily be pried off. In its other frequent incarnation, there is a heavy-ish ball along the handle which can be dropped repeatedly against the bell for the same effect.
The latter is a generally terrifying piece of hardware into which you should not insert any digits or other body parts. The toothed loop fits over the tip of the egg, and the aspiring breakfaster may squeeze together the outer handles or finger holes (those are safe) to puncture the egg evenly-ish around its surface.
Should this newfound knowledge fill a human with ambition beyond their station, they might consider pouring out the contents of the egg, scrambling them luxuriously with butter and/or cream, then returning them to the washed and emptied shell to top with creme fraiche and caviar. For that, they may employ a wee, delicate egg spoon. Presumably, even the non-egg-cupped among us can figure out how to use one of those.
