Spring 2024

ears ago I had the experience of staying at the Helmsley Palace Hotel in NewYork while on yearly busi- ness trips. This opulent hotel was draped in tapestry, marble floors and an elaborately fur- nished lobby. While all this ele- gance was overwhelmingly impressive, my favorite part of the stay was room service. Being served breakfast in my room was more memorable than any 5-star restaurant that I dined at. A waiter enters, rolling in a cart, and proceeds to meticulously set up a table by the window with crisp linens, flatware and your plate covered by a metal dome. Breakfast was served on old hotel china and coffee came in heavy pewter hotel servers, much like the ones turning up in antique shops today. Waiting in anticipation as the waiter lifted the dome, there sat a white porcelain egg cup holding a soft-boiled egg, accompanied by one buttered toast with crusts removed and sliced into thin strips. “Soldiers and eggs” was a fancy way of ordering soft-boiled eggs with toast. But it was the presentation of this simple dish that has stayed in my memory all these years, particularly the white porcelain egg cup.This egg cup transformed my simple breakfast into a queen’s feast, and I have been in search of this experience once again and ever since. Soft-boiled eggs are rarely eaten in the U.S. these days. Americans are always on the run and prefer their eggs scrambled, fried, rolled into an omelette or they merely grab a cup of coffee and a granola bar as they bolt out the front door. In England and other coun- tries around the world, there’s patience and a time set aside for breakfast. The British have serving pieces for every type of dish served, including a soft- boiled egg. The purpose of an egg cup is to serve an upright soft-boiled egg that stays warm until ready to eat. This is accomplished by covering the warm egg with a crocheted cozy. Once the cozy is removed, one can slice the top of the egg horizontally with a whack of a knife or snip the top with a stainless steel gadget. Some diners like to use a special spoon to scoop out the jammy yolk, while others enjoy dunking their toast “soldiers” into the yellow sea. History has revealed that the humble egg cup, made of silver, was unearthed with other utensils in the early 1700s at the archaeological site in Pompeii, Italy, preserved by lava and ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. In France, at the Palace of Versailles, King Louis the XV enjoyed soft- boiled eggs served in elegant egg cups and challenged his guests to a game of decapitating their eggs in a single blow. Points were extracted if 98 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • S P R I N G 2 0 2 4 COLLECTING T E XT AND PHOTOGRA PHY B Y MAR J OR I E S OW Eggcentric Vintage Egg Cups Y A collection of rare and charming egg cups. Humpty Dumpty, a duck, a painted face couple and feet with duckie slippers.