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Eighth Day: Aunt
A new idea came into Aunt Jane's head, however, and she whispered privately to Edith, "I'm coming over byand-by to contrive a little surprise for the rest of them. Do you have sixteen nice large eggs ready after dinner and some boiling water."
So in the afternoon she slipped over alone, and telling Mrs. Lane she wanted to have a private conference with Edith, proceeded to the kitchen. First she gave her this recipe:
No. 108-STUFFED EGGS.
Boil eggs hard; take off the shells without breaking the whites, cut the eggs neatly in two in the middle, take out the yolk and rub to a powder, which mix with salt, pepper and dry mustard. Fill each hollow with this mixture, then place the ends together again and wrap in tissue paper. A picnic dish. "Now put on the eggs where they will boil gently for ten or fifteen minutes. You know if the water boils violently they will knock against one another and crack the shells, and that would spoil the shape of them. While they are boiling we will cut this paper, if you will get some scissors."
Aunt Jane had brought with her several sheets of white tissue paper, and she showed Edith how to cut the ends in fringe like motto-papers. "We'll not wrap the eggs in them to-day," said she, "but have them ready for the morning."
When the eggs were boiled, the shells were carefully picked off according to directions, and the beautiful, smooth white balls cut in two. Mrs. King said there were no particular directions about mixing the condiments. A teaspoonful each of black pepper and dry mustard, with two of salt, would, she thought, be enough. When the whites were refilled and carefully placed on their ends in a dish, touching each other closely that they might not lose shape, it was found that there was still a considerable quantity of the seasoned yolk left. "We'll put that into the salad-dressing," said Aunt Jane. "It can't hurt it, and it may make it a little nicer. I shall be in here again the first thing to-morrow morning."
Recipe No. 108 is a deviled egg in its earliest, plainest form: no mayonnaise, no butter, just yolk and three seasonings, reassembled into whole eggs and wrapped in paper for carrying. The narrative around it supplies the quantities the recipe itself leaves out.
- The hinge is the gentle boilAunt Jane's reason is the right one: a violent boil knocks the eggs together and cracks the shells, and a cracked white will not hold its shape when halved and refilled. Bring the water up, then hold it at a bare shiver for the whole cooking time.
- Ten to fifteen minutes is longTwelve minutes at a gentle simmer is the outside limit for a large egg; fifteen gives you a chalky yolk with a grey-green ring at the edge. Lift them into cold water as soon as they are done, which also loosens the shells for the clean peeling the recipe depends on.
- Peel eggs that are not too freshThe instruction to remove the shells without breaking the whites is much easier to follow with eggs a week or more old. Very fresh eggs bond to the membrane and tear.
- The seasoning as given is aggressiveMrs. King's figures are a teaspoonful each of black pepper and dry mustard and two of salt for sixteen yolks. Taste as you go: 2 teaspoons of salt across 16 yolks is on the high side, and a teaspoon of dry mustard is assertive.
- There is no binderNothing moist goes in, so the filling is a dry powder and will not pack tightly. A spoonful of the cooking-cooled yolk crumb pressed firmly into each hollow is all the recipe intends; if you want it to hold, that is what a modern deviled egg's mayonnaise or softened butter is for.
- Yield and the leftover yolkSixteen eggs give sixteen reassembled whole eggs, enough for eight to sixteen at a picnic. Aunt Jane's surplus seasoned yolk stirred into salad dressing is sound practice — it is essentially the beginning of a boiled-egg dressing.
- Tissue paper and motto-papersPlain white tissue fringed at the ends holds the halves together and here stands in for a picnic container. Any tissue sold for gift wrapping now may be dyed or treated; use unprinted food-safe paper, or butcher's paper, if you want to copy the effect.
- Keep them coldCooked eggs carried to a picnic should not sit at room temperature for hours. Pack them on ice and serve within two hours of leaving the refrigerator.
Six Little Cooks, generally attributed to E. S. Kirkland and published in Chicago in the 1870s, teaches by story: Aunt Jane runs a cooking class for children, and the numbered recipes are dropped into the narrative as she uses them. "Stuffed eggs" is the older and more literal name for what American cooks came to call deviled eggs — "deviled," in cookery, signalled that something was seasoned hot, which here means the mustard and black pepper and nothing more. The fussy final touch, wrapping each reassembled egg in fringed tissue cut like a motto-paper, echoes the wrapped mottoes of Victorian confectionery and party crackers, whose tissue was fringed and twisted in much the same way — the comparison to motto-papers is the book's own. That such trouble was taken suggests something about the period's picnic: food was expected to travel looking deliberate, and a hard-boiled egg made whole again and dressed in paper was a small piece of table theatre.