I love metal especially if it’s hand wrought in some way. I mean, really love it. The façades of Angeli on Melrose and Trattoria Angeli in West LA were made of corten steel, the type of steel that forms it own protective rust layer that gives it a characteristic color and texture. Basically they were huge signs bolted to the front of the building. I still marvel that we managed to get them approved by the city. And my love extends to forged iron, deeply so. All the hooks in my home were hand forged at the John C. Campbell Folk School. I bought them when I was teaching a weeklong pie class there.
All this is a preamble to the decision to purchase an egg spoon to take on the Good Food Camping trip. The trip was planned as one segment of a show focused on camping. We couldn’t talk about camping if we hadn’t been, right? As part of our planning process a spreadsheet of assignments was created for everything from tents and chairs to headlamps and steak. Then producer Gillian texted the team, “We need an egg spoon.” Less than five minutes elapsed before I purchased one.
What is an egg spoon you ask? It is an object that became a culture war lightning rod for a minute. It all started when Alice Waters posted a photograph of cooking an egg over an open fire using a long handled, deeply cupped spoon made of wrought iron. Despite the object’s provocation to easy punchlines I fell in love with the craftsmanship of the thing but couldn’t justify spending the money for the original design. It’s gorgeous. But so is the one I decided to purchase, the Wicks Forge Curled Handle Egg Spoon. It’s beautiful with a good heft and comes pre-seasoned.
Apparently Alice was inspired by a photograph in William Rubel’s The Magic of Fire, one of my all time favorite people and books. Years ago I had the opportunity to cook with Rubel over fire for a SlowFood event. It was magical. So I leapt at the opportunity to finally acquire my own long handled iron spoon. I imagined how it would look after the camping trip hung on a wall with some of my other metal objects. Yes, all of this thinking happened in the five minutes I managed to google “egg spoon” and find one I could afford.
On to the camping adventure. The seemingly niche object turned out to be quite useful. We used the handle end as a fire poker several times before waking up and giving it a go for its eponymous use. There was an unexpected learning curve. It seems simple. Add oil to the spoon, break an egg into it, then hold it over the fire in such a way that the oil heats and the egg cooks but your hand does not. I foolishly went about holding the long object in my left hand while I broke the egg with my right and settled it in the cupped spoon area. Which meant that my left hand (which is basically useless) tipped slightly as I gently infiltrated it onto the fire causing half the egg white to spill out. I did this three times. We only had four eggs. Eventually I asked for help so I could use two hands to settle the spoon which solved the problem. I think if I were on my own I would break the raw egg into a small bowl first, then pour the egg into the spoon with fewer problems. Looking at the video of experience now it’s clear that the original egg spoon is larger with a bigger bowl than mine, but I still love it. You can see here how beautifully it fries the egg, even with scant white. I’ll get better at using it with time but I want to be able to use it for other things too. Any suggestions?
A mini s’more? Dollar pancakes one by one? A handful of nuts? A bite-sized grilled cheese?
I, too, lusted after Alice's egg spoon at the time of the original kerfuffle, but could't afford it!...So glad there is a more affordable version! I guess it's too small and totally impractical for a nice batch of zabaglione, right? I remember seeing a large, round-bottomed copper pot for that purpose somewhere along the way. Maybe sizzle a few cloves of garlic in oil for a quickie confit?