A flash of silver pierces the white orb, spilling its orange centre. The golden yolk, perfectly poached, mixes with the smoked paprika to form a tangerine river. On another plate, two fried eggs sit on a bed of chermoula marinated vegetables. Yellow middles peep out from beneath a veil of sage. Notting Hill’s Eggbreak boasts every variety of egg dish imaginable, from green shakshuka to a heart-stopping French toast and mascarpone. There are few ingredients that can sustain an entire menu, but eggs are special—eggstraordinary, even.
‘Eggs are incredibly versatile,’ points out Eggbreak’s general manager, Hana Bachankova. ‘Whether you’re looking for something light to set you off for the day or something more decadent, such as our burrata and truffle scrambled eggs or egg breaky melt, we’ve got plenty of options. Our eggs come from Fenton Farms in Holcombe Rogus [on the Devon/Somerset border].’
Eggs, however, are more than a foodstuff, having long served as objects of practicality and curiosity.
Artists and makers through the centuries have paid homage to their shape and composition, from the Fabergé Gatchina Palace, which contains a miniature gold replica of the St Petersburg palace in place of the yolk, to Cadbury’s sugary approximation of a chicken’s egg.
Before the invention of oil paints, eggs were mixed with pigment to form tempera, a practice that is periodically revived by enterprising artists, and the shells have been used as a canvas for thousands of years—archaeologists have found decorated ostrich-shell pieces in African tombs.
Denne historien er fra April 22, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra April 22, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
