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Fried Eggs, Kellogg
Cut from a raw Virginia ham six thin slices. Heat a tablespoon melted butter in a black frying pan, add slices of ham one beside another and briskly cook for one minute on each side. Carefully crack twelve fresh eggs over slices, season with a teaspoon salt, two saltspoons pepper, and set in the oven for six minutes. Remove carefully glide them on a large, hot dish and keep hot. Peel two fresh red tomatoes, cut in eight quarters each, and place in small saucepan with a teaspoon good butter. Season with a half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons pepper, lightly mix, cover pan, let gently cook on range for eight minutes, arrange tomatoes around eggs and serve.
A hotel-style ham and eggs for six, written for a cook who already knows the pan. Two things need attention: the ham is a dry-cured country ham, not a supermarket deli slice, and the oven temperature is never given.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so "two saltspoons pepper" is half a teaspoon. Given how salty the ham is, hold back most of the teaspoon of salt called for on the eggs and taste at the table instead.
- Raw Virginia hamThis means a dry salt-cured country ham, sold uncooked and sliced thin — not the wet-cured pink ham of a modern supermarket. If you substitute cooked deli ham, the one minute per side is still right, but you lose the salt-and-smoke edge the dish is built on.
- Oven heatNo oven temperature is given. Around 400F is a reasonable modern equivalent; six minutes there should set the whites while leaving the yolks soft. If you want firm yolks, expect closer to ten.
- The black frying panCast iron or carbon steel, and it has to go from stovetop to oven, so no plastic handles. Use the widest pan you own — twelve eggs cracked over six ham slices need room or they run together into one sheet.
- Cracking the eggsThe hinge of the dish is getting the eggs onto the ham without breaking the yolks. Crack each into a small cup first and slide it into place; two eggs per slice, set side by side.
- Tomatoes"Cut in eight quarters each" means eight pieces per tomato. Eight minutes covered with butter softens them into a loose garnish rather than holding their shape — if you want distinct wedges, five minutes is enough. Peel by scoring and blanching thirty seconds.
- ServingSix ham slices and twelve eggs would suit six as a breakfast or supper dish. It should go out immediately; the eggs go on cooking on a hot platter and the yolks will continue to firm.
This comes from Alexander Filippini's The International Cook Book (1906), written by a cook long associated with Delmonico's in New York, and it follows the old restaurant habit of attaching a surname to a garnish or arrangement — Lobster Newberg is said to have been named for a Delmonico's patron, though the origins of such names, Eggs Benedict among them, are disputed. Who "Kellogg" was here is not documented in the book, and the name tells you nothing about the method; what identifies the dish is the Virginia ham. Dry salt-cured hams from Virginia, particularly around Smithfield, were among the prestige American cured meats of the period, shipped north to hotels and clubs, and a recipe that specifies one is signalling quality rather than economy. Cooking ham and eggs together in one pan and finishing them in the oven is an efficient way of serving a table of six at once, and the buttered tomatoes around the edge are the sort of cheap, bright garnish that made a plain plate look composed.