A couple of months ago I came home with a HUGE bag full of lemons from Hillary’s dad’s tree. I’d been dying to make preserved lemons, and Hillary came through with primary ingredient. I was a bit concerned about asking for 15-18 pieces of fruit – it sounded greedy. When Hillary relayed my request to her dad, he was crestfallen that I wanted so few.
I think this is how many he wanted to give me. It made me feel much better about my requesting what to me seemed like so many. There were at least 20 in the bag.
When DH2U got home, I showed him the bag of glorious fruit, he jokingly said, “Forget preserving them, let’s make lemon meringue pie!” Then peering in to see the number of lemons involved, “Lots of lemon meringue pies!”
“But I don’t like meringue. Let’s make lemon pie.”
“Wait a minute, you don’t like custard.”
I looked at him, confused, “Yes I do.”
“You have horror stories of custard.”
Then it all made sense. I responded, “I don’t like British custard. It’s runny and they use it to ruin perfectly good fruit pies. I want my custard set good and firm.”
“Did you have a bad experience with uncooked eggs as a child?”
And then it came to me, the reason behind my aversion to runny egg dishes. It was my Sophia from the Golden Girls moment:
Picture It – National City, 1977. Little Tammy was in the first grade, and it was snack time. She takes a peeled, hard-boiled egg from her lunch box. (If only I could remember what character was on my lunch box in the 1st grade!) Hungry, she took a huge bite of egg, only to find herself with a mouthful of runny egg yolk. Screaming, she ran to the trash can and spat out the egg, scraping her fingers down her tongue to get the liquid off. The teacher came over and comforted her. She liked that part.
I can’t keep up the third person any longer!
When I got home that day I told Ma what happened. Evidently all the other eggs in that batch were fully cooked. That fluke egg started the textural preference that I still have today.
Soft-boiled eggs: Disgusting or yummy? Or Does anyone else have a youthful food horror story that still haunts you today?
Grown Up, Now What? 