The Guy Who Invented The Egg McMuffin Is Dead And I Don’t Feel So Good Myself
Yes it’s true .
I can honestly say I’ve never eaten an Egg McMuffin. Never even tried one. Long time readers may recall my antipathy toward eggs which some would say disqualifies me from being a true gourmand, whatever the hell that is. That’s all right with me. I’m just a guy who likes food.
The passing of Mr. Egg McMuffin reminded me that Easter has just passed for most Christian denominations. I had a bit of a different upbringing around that holiday since my family wasn’t particularly religious and my dad usually got some time off around then so many Easter mornings were spent in campgrounds. The possibilities of hiding eggs on a campsite are infinitely expanded over to those in a house so it was possible for parents to keep kids occupied for much longer than they would be at home while they had a second cup of Maxwell House and another Kent while trying to orient the rabbit ears on the crummy black and white TV we dragged with us on every trip.
When we weren’t camping on Easter my dad’s gag of hiding an egg in the toilet tank was a fondly expected ritual. To this day however, the greatest prize I ever found in a hunt and not coincidentally my earliest “Easter Bunny” memory was a small plastic toy. Well not a toy really, a statue. A statue of a towering figure in history. A figure who remains a role model to millions to this very day. A figure who in some way can be seen a synonymous with the Easter holiday. Yes. That man.
Bugs Bunny.
I’m sure that there were nicer things that I got as little Easter gifts over subsequent years; certainly there were more expensive things. But nothing ever gave me that jolt of kid happiness that that little Bugs Bunny figure did. It didn’t hurt that that Easter was right around the time that my folks had broken down and finally bought a color TV and I saw ol’ Bugs for the first time in his true color of….light blue? Well, maybe the color was a bit off on that set but I remember being absolutely blown away that Bugs was vaguely bluish. Or maybe it wasn’t just the TV; some pictures of Bugs on the web seem to have a bluish tint
Another early Easter memory I have was of my father’s suffering brought on by a sadistic Italian teacher (how’s that for the Bible with a bit of a role switcheroo?) At my elementary school they started forcing kids to take a foreign language in the third grade. Fine, I figured I lived in a neighborhood where almost everyone seemed to be Italian but us so I took Italian. Well, I have no idea if this is an authentically Italian thing or not since I’ve not seen it since, but as part of the “culture” portion of the class the teacher assigned us to make “Italian Easter Eggs”. “Italian Easter Eggs” in this teacher’s world are hollowed out and decorated shells strung together on a rope. How do you empty the shells without breaking? According to the teacher, you simply made small holes at the poles of the shell (in other words, the points of the oval, not the equator) and blew out the raw egg.
This, friends, was obviously long before everyone was afraid of salmonella from factory-farmed eggs.
So there I was, nine years old, asthmatic, huffing and puffing away to no avail. Finally my father took pity on me and, after he too failed with the blowing method decided to take a page from Rocky Balboa’s book.
That’s right. He sucked the raw eggs out of the shell.
It was the most disturbing night of my young life. My father, seated at the dining room table inhaling raw eggs, gagging and spitting the contents into a bowl. To this day I can still hear the suck, the liquid “flcloomp”, a gag and spit. Three times he did this. For a decoration. I was so upset after the first one that my mother hustled me out of the dining room until he was done. I don’t remember how the eggs looked or how I transported such a delicate thing to school. I just remember the horrible, horrible gurgling and wondering who the hell would go through such a thing when you could just boil the damn eggs and color them.
So maybe that’s why I don’t like eggs. And to this day, I’ve still never tasted an Egg McMuffin
I can honestly say I’ve never eaten an Egg McMuffin. Never even tried one. Long time readers may recall my antipathy toward eggs which some would say disqualifies me from being a true gourmand, whatever the hell that is. That’s all right with me. I’m just a guy who likes food.
The passing of Mr. Egg McMuffin reminded me that Easter has just passed for most Christian denominations. I had a bit of a different upbringing around that holiday since my family wasn’t particularly religious and my dad usually got some time off around then so many Easter mornings were spent in campgrounds. The possibilities of hiding eggs on a campsite are infinitely expanded over to those in a house so it was possible for parents to keep kids occupied for much longer than they would be at home while they had a second cup of Maxwell House and another Kent while trying to orient the rabbit ears on the crummy black and white TV we dragged with us on every trip.
When we weren’t camping on Easter my dad’s gag of hiding an egg in the toilet tank was a fondly expected ritual. To this day however, the greatest prize I ever found in a hunt and not coincidentally my earliest “Easter Bunny” memory was a small plastic toy. Well not a toy really, a statue. A statue of a towering figure in history. A figure who remains a role model to millions to this very day. A figure who in some way can be seen a synonymous with the Easter holiday. Yes. That man.
Bugs Bunny.
I’m sure that there were nicer things that I got as little Easter gifts over subsequent years; certainly there were more expensive things. But nothing ever gave me that jolt of kid happiness that that little Bugs Bunny figure did. It didn’t hurt that that Easter was right around the time that my folks had broken down and finally bought a color TV and I saw ol’ Bugs for the first time in his true color of….light blue? Well, maybe the color was a bit off on that set but I remember being absolutely blown away that Bugs was vaguely bluish. Or maybe it wasn’t just the TV; some pictures of Bugs on the web seem to have a bluish tint
Another early Easter memory I have was of my father’s suffering brought on by a sadistic Italian teacher (how’s that for the Bible with a bit of a role switcheroo?) At my elementary school they started forcing kids to take a foreign language in the third grade. Fine, I figured I lived in a neighborhood where almost everyone seemed to be Italian but us so I took Italian. Well, I have no idea if this is an authentically Italian thing or not since I’ve not seen it since, but as part of the “culture” portion of the class the teacher assigned us to make “Italian Easter Eggs”. “Italian Easter Eggs” in this teacher’s world are hollowed out and decorated shells strung together on a rope. How do you empty the shells without breaking? According to the teacher, you simply made small holes at the poles of the shell (in other words, the points of the oval, not the equator) and blew out the raw egg.
This, friends, was obviously long before everyone was afraid of salmonella from factory-farmed eggs.
So there I was, nine years old, asthmatic, huffing and puffing away to no avail. Finally my father took pity on me and, after he too failed with the blowing method decided to take a page from Rocky Balboa’s book.
That’s right. He sucked the raw eggs out of the shell.
It was the most disturbing night of my young life. My father, seated at the dining room table inhaling raw eggs, gagging and spitting the contents into a bowl. To this day I can still hear the suck, the liquid “flcloomp”, a gag and spit. Three times he did this. For a decoration. I was so upset after the first one that my mother hustled me out of the dining room until he was done. I don’t remember how the eggs looked or how I transported such a delicate thing to school. I just remember the horrible, horrible gurgling and wondering who the hell would go through such a thing when you could just boil the damn eggs and color them.
So maybe that’s why I don’t like eggs. And to this day, I’ve still never tasted an Egg McMuffin
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