Posted by NORIKO on May 22, 1997 at 09:00:43:
Hello, my name is Noriko and I am a great fan of Arthur Ransome. Some
members of "Tearoom Arthur Ransome" (on Nifty Serve Japan) and I are
having a discussion about boiled eggs. We conclude that there must be
some cultural difference and it may be better to ask English people
directly. So I come here to ask you some questions.
First, please understand how we Japanese cook boiled eggs. We usually
put eggs in cold water and put on a fire. After the water boils, we
cook 6 to 7 minutes for soft boiled egg(eggwhite hard, yolk partly
soft) or 12minutes for hard boiled egg(eggwhite and yolk hard). We
take the eggshell off and eat with hands.
But in reading Swallows & Amazons, we wondered becausethey cooked eggs
for only 3 to 4 minutes. We found out that they put eggs in boiled
water, but still it seems too soft to take the shell off. In "We Didn't
Mean to Go to Sea",Susan tried to cook eggs for 4 minutes when Jim
like it "hardish". But in our sense, we call it "very soft". Maybe
we are always eating "steel-boiled" eggs as Dick said in "Picts and
Martyers".
So we'd like to ask:
How long do you cook for soft boiled egg/hard boiled egg?
@ How does soft boiled egg or hard boiled egg look like?
Do you eat eggs cooked for 3 minutes with hands or with
spoon and eggstand? Did Swallows eat with spoon?
(They cooked longer to bring for a picnic and ate with hands,
right?)
These things might be too basic for you and never be explained
in books. So we need your help. Thanks in advance.