Eggstrordinary Dilemma

Ewww.

(That may be the worst title ever. Maybe I'll change it someday.)

So Japan's a great country, they have it all here. Where else can you spend $8 on your lunch break for pizza, tater tots, bottomless drinks and karaoke for an hour or ride the former world's tallest roller coaster at the base of Mt. Fuji? (Well, I guess that last one supposes Japan by default.) But anyway, it's a great place except for one thing.....People refuse to fully cook food here. Oh sure, the first thing you think is, "Well of course silly, that's what makes it sushi!" But I'm not talking about the fish. I'm talking about stuff that I was taught should be fully cooked no matter what. I'm talking about stuff like ham and eggs. Since I am not a fan of the ham in the first place, I don't really care that all ham here is served raw (still, eww) but I do enjoy a nice hard fried egg now and then. But they won't do it here, not even if you beg and plead. (I imagine. I've never done that exactly, due to the language barrier, but almost.)

I was brought up in the raw-eggs-will-kill-you school of thought. My mom would have a heart attack every time I even glanced at a bowl of raw cookie dough. (Meanwhile my dad, who was out of her jurisdiction apparently, would be practically gnawing on the spoon caked with dough proclaiming that if he were to die of salmonella poisoning, he would "die happy.") So not surprisingly, I learned to be disgusted at the thought of eating any type of runny egg: sunny-side up, over easy, poached, or soft boiled. As soon as an egg hit the frying pan I would jab it with a fork and a spatula simultaneously until the yolk covered the bottom of the pan.

You can imagine how surprised I was when I came to Japan and saw eggs in the grocery store...UNREFRIGERATED. I know the Japanese are famous for taking culinary leaps of faith (what other culture considers a fish known to secrete a powerful neurotoxin as a delicacy?) but come on! Unrefrigerated eggs? At first I thought, "Well, I guess if you cook them really well it doesn't make that big of a difference." But they DON'T COOK THEM! They eat a lot of eggs here and most people will mix a raw egg into their rice or ramen or eat one over easy on their "American" hamburger. It's easy enough to order meals without the obilgatory egg that is usually on top of everything, but what got me into this mess was the very reasonably priced "Morning Set" at Excelsior Cafe. (Excelsior = Japan's answer to Starbucks.) For the low low price of 400 yen (about $3.82 American), you get a breakfast sandwich AND a medium sized caramel almond latte. There are two sandwiches to choose from: one with raw ham (no) and one served with an over easy egg on top. This is an incredible deal IF I could eat a runny egg. But I can't. So I went to my friend Sali, who speaks Japanese, and asked her how to say that I wanted my egg cooked more. She wrote something down for me and the next morning I went to Excelsior armed with the secret password for cooked eggs. After I gave the girl the piece of paper she looked at me, asked a bunch of questions in Japanese (I have learned that if you are asked lots of questions in Japanese, it is easiest just to keep nodding "yes") and somehow my sandwich turned up without an over easy egg. In fact, there was no egg. This was actually an improvement, however not as good as if there had been a nice warm cooked egg, so I knew I couldn't give up.

A few days later, I went to Denny's for breakfast and ordered a fried egg. Again, I gave her the password scribbled on my paper in hopes that it would lead to a hard fried egg. Instead she shook her head and told me that they don't do that sort of thing there. So finally I just pointed at the scrambled eggs on the menu, knowing they would be served runny. They were. (ew)

I know what you're thinking, "Kellie, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." So I went to the store (specifically one that keeps it's eggs refrigerated) and I bought my own eggs. I got the pan hot and buttered, and cracked an egg in it. You won't believe this, but to my utter horror, the egg had already been soft boiled. It just sat there, in its semi-gelatinous state and laughed at me as it sizzled. Who sells eggs already half-cooked? Once an egg has been soft boiled and cooled, it can't be cooked more with good results. I learned that from experience.

So, after a few more failed attempts at Excelsior and having thrown the unhelpful scrap of paper away, last week I found myself at an Excelsior I had never been to (these are getting harder and harder to come by) and just ordered a Morning Set with no mention of egg-related requests. When I got my sandwich, there was no egg on it, but a HARD boiled egg sitting next to it, uncracked. What was this? I still have no idea what happened, but I guess I just really looked like I needed a hard boiled egg. And how right they were. How very very right.