Thursday, April 3, 2008

Eggs With Toast Soldiers

As a child I remember having hard or soft boiled eggs in an egg cup. We would cut off the top - and then add salt/pepper and butter to the inside of the egg. Delicious!

Recently I've come across a few references to eggs with soldiers or "toast soldiers". I wanted to find out what it meant, so I searched around a bit.

Seems like the "toast soldiers" are a British "comfort food". The soldiers are thinly sliced pieces of toast that can be dipped into a soft boiled egg. Makes sense. I love my fried eggs slightly runny (the yoke - not the little bit of white that surrounds the yoke - if that is runny too - I gag!) - and like to dip toast into the fried egg. A bit of ketchup rounds it out.

"A soldier is British term that refers to a piece of toast cut into thin strips reminiscent of the formation of soldiers on parade. The toast is sliced in this manner so that it can be dipped into the opening of a soft boiled egg that has had the top of its shell removed.Another belief for the origin of the name is from the childhood rhyme "Humpty Dumpty". The bread refers to the soldiers who went to rescue Humpty Dumpty when he had his "great fall." (from Wikipedia)

For lunch yesterday I decided to make some eggs with toast soldiers for the kids. I read that they are also called "Eggy Soldiers" and so that is what I called them when telling the kids what was for lunch. They were perplexed.

I prepared the meal and ds ran off and brought something back that he thought should be a part of the meal - b/c eggy soldiers need some real soldiers.

Not to be outdone - sister ran and did the same. There were definitely some eggy soldiers on the table.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Seems a logical way to eat eggs ! Hurrah to the English !

Anonymous said...

I love to dip toast in "dippy eggs" (as my kids used to call them) and this seems like a great way to do it. Minor correction: the yellow part of an egg is the yolk, not yoke.

Anonymous said...

Lol, my son also refers to sunny side up eggs as "dippy eggs". Thought he was the only one because I have only ever called them fried or sunny side up.

Anonymous said...

Being English, I grew up with Eggy Soldiers for Brekkers. Best soldiers are spread with Radish Butter, grate half a dozen radishes (trimmed, but unpeeled) into 2 oz softened butter, add a little freshly ground black pepper and combine with a fork. Chill in the refrigerator to firm up and then spread on your soldiers - A grown-up taste for big kids!