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Ham and Eggs
Broil some thin slices of ham, and poach as many eggs as there are slices of ham. Put the ham on a hot dish, with an egg on each slice, and serve.
Three lines, two ingredients, and almost nothing said about either. What matters here is the ham: in 1896 it meant a dry-cured, bone-in ham sliced to order, which behaves very differently from the wet-cured deli product.
- "Broil" means direct heatIn 1896 that meant a slice cooked close to a live fire or under a gas broiler, not baked. A modern oven broiler on high with the rack in the top position does the same job; a hot dry skillet is a fair substitute and catches the rendered fat. Thin slices cook very fast, so watch them.
- Choose the right hamThe recipe asks only for thin slices, but a genuinely dry-cured slice (country ham or similar) suits it better than modern wet-cured supermarket ham, which holds a great deal of water and will steam and curl rather than brown; if that is what you have, blot it dry and use higher heat.
- SaltA traditional dry-cured slice can be aggressively salty. Some cooks soak or blanch it briefly before broiling, and no salt should go near the finished plate until you have tasted the ham.
- PoachingWater barely trembling at about 180-190F, a splash of vinegar, three minutes for a set white and a liquid yolk. Fresh eggs hold together far better than old ones, whose whites spread into rags.
- Both at oncePoach the eggs first and hold them in warm water while the ham broils, or the ham will be cold by the time the eggs are done. The eggs need a moment on a towel to drain before they go on the meat.
- The hot dish is not a flourishHam fat sets and poached eggs go cold quickly. Warm the platter in a low oven; the original is spare enough that its mention of a hot dish is worth noticing.
- YieldRead it as one or two slices per person, with the same number of eggs. For four people, four to eight thin slices and the matching count of eggs.
Oscar Tschirky was maitre d'hotel of the Waldorf, not a cook by trade, and his 1896 book runs from elaborate hotel service down to items like this one, a dish familiar enough to need no instruction. Ham and eggs is often described as a staple of the nineteenth-century American breakfast; the hotel version simply put it on a warmed plate. The brevity is the point -- the entry exists to record how the Waldorf plated a familiar dish, not to teach anyone to make it, and its presence in a grand hotel book shows how far plain American cooking traveled into fashionable dining rooms.