Ande ke Funde

I must say that while I love the rain, I do think it exceedingly rude of it to decide to suddenly pour without any prior intimation in the form of a polite drizze whatsoever, and without any consideration for my clothes, mood or time of month. This minor outburst is because I was caught unawares in a sudden and shortlived downpour at about 8pm last night, wearing LINEN and pretty sandals JUST after my feet had been bandaged by my doctor! So my bandage got soaked and dirty! Grrr. It didnt even allow me to enjoy the rain as I normally would! And it suddenly got cold! Brrrrrr!!!!

That said, I may move on in peace to my above-mentioned subject of choice, eggs. And I will also resolve a mystery that has been plaguing me for ever, but more persistently so since this weekend - do the eggs vegetarians eat contain chicks?

Eggs hold great sentimental, as well as the obvious nutritional, value for me. Because my father's family was very strict Jain, and my cook was Hindu Brahmin, we were never allowed to bring eggs into the house (I suspect more for indispensable condition of the cook than for my dad hehe). So it was relegated to an after-school snack whenever we visited my nani, who made these succulent Spanish omelets in her massive apartment with the cool grey stone kitchens and servant quarters the size of our bedroom - that was the part of the house that made me identify with those tales of English castles - or to Sunday breakfasts after a sleepover at my mami's, who, though herself Jain, is a super cook. I remember vividly my first experience in the kitchen - I was 5 or 6 and we were going to the baniya below my mami's house with my cousin sister, only a year older than me. We got our half dozen eggs or so to the kitchen, where I decided to try cracking one. Somehow the egg slipped from my hand, skidded over the counter before landing with a crash on the floor, splitting yellow albumen and golden yolk all over my hands and feet. I was stunned and, being the perfectionist older child that I am, knew then and there that I was klutz number 1 and not fated to be the gourmet chef I only wish to be now that I may soon have a husband to feed and keep close to me. (Which reminds me of the little joke between kareena aka Dolly and Konkona aka the maid in Omkara - Kareena says that her dadi told her that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. To which Konkona retorts that her dadi told her that the way to a man's heart can also be reached through a path BELOW his stomach hehehe). Ahem. Anyway.

So. Sentimental and nostalgic value. Breakfasts at WIAA after swimming practice, consisting of masala omelet, chips and Vanilla milkshake of the hybrid homemade-restaurant variety, neither here nor there that is only found in clubs. Minimalist, non-fuss, but with what flavour! What a kick of chili, and that amazing sweet Kissan ketchup to top it off! Fat soft golden potato chips, not these anorexic hard and burnt French fries at these fast-food joints. And milkshake that was thin like Chhaash, but so sweet, like liquefied Kwality icecream (Amul and Walls suck).

Learning to make omelets on my own in college, with Patty for company, and the spirit of her mother's cooking. The pains we went to in flipping them, getting our hands twisted trying to flip it from one pan onto another, yelping in despair when the perfect round broke - introducing her to chili, and she potatoes and peas to me. What powerpacked omelets we made - practically non-veg upma - with onions, tomatoes, chili, potatoes and peas.

And this New Years I got introduced properly to Akuri and Kejriwals. Wow what yum breakfast! For those of you who dont know, because I didnt, here Ill grace you with the recipes.

For Akuri, just saute the onions in oil, then add tomatoes and chilis. Then add the egg which you should have mixed into a sunshine yellow pulp witha fork or an eggbeater in another bowl. Add salt, red chili powder, garam masala, a pinch of haldi. When done, garnish with coriander/cilantro if you like.

As for Kejriwals, and I really wonder where the name came from, heat butter in a pan and break the egg directly on the pan and let it fry with a bit of salt. Make toast in the meantime, and when it is done, put a slice of cheese on it, then the fried egg, and garnish with green chili slices.

You do know that if you add salt in the beginning of the cooking process your food cooks faster right? Good.

So on to my big conundrum. I think eggs have been fairly controversial among theologically-inclined laypersons such as myself and older aunties (usually myself against older aunties). While most prefer to err on the side of caution, we eggetarians have always defended our position from the stricter vegetarians by stating that we're technically not killing a living thing, and therefore eggs should be allowed. According to me, eating bali (a mava sweet made from the first milk a cow produced for her newborn calf, which is supposed to be its creamiest), is far less compassionate than eating something that isnt even living, because you're taking away nutrition from an innocent baby, and something you would never condone in a human situation. Or eating varakh, for that matter, the silver foil sometimes found on our sweets, which is ground to its thinner-than-paper consistency in a cow's intestines.

Anyway, i would draw a parallel to the human condition. The eggs we eat are unfertilised. If someone is against eating those eggs, they would go to waste anyway, because roosters also must be getting tired. A hen lays an egg a DAY, just like I lay eggs about once a month. Which go to waste, so to speak, every month as I am not having any babies at the moment. By the logic of such people, none of my eggs should be going wasted, and therefore I should be pregnant all the time. It is as strenous on the part of the hen to incubate eggs continually, just as it is for women to be continually pregnant, and unfair of anyone to expect that. In that case, would it be not efficient to eat a chicken egg chock-full of nutrients which is going to waste ANYWAY? And don't you want to preserve the balance of chickens to humans? (Though right now it is the human ratio that needs preserving, thank you. And more than that, the humans to natural resources ratio).

My eggetarian cousin and I got into an argument over eggs with her non-vegetarian younger sister and aspiring lawyer Namu about the validation vegetarians have over eating eggs. We all agreed that those who will eat eggs in cake and biscuits and cheese and bread but not in its actual form and who look shocked at others who do are total and utter hypocrites, and that we respected those who were strict enough to not eat them in any form whatsoever. However, Namu's stance was, if I recall correctly, that eggetarians are the biggest hypocrites because they are neither completely vegetarian nor non-vegetarian (hai hai the stupid issues we Gujjus have). So Hetu countered that we're ok because we dont kill living things, though Namu said we suck because we're PREVENTING a living thing from being born. Which got me confused about my stand on that as well as abortion and when does an embryo really become living?

So today, i did some research into this most pressing of questions, which may relieve my religious anxieties, and found this. It seems someone else had the same concerns as me. Quite entertaining reading. Anyway the basic gist of it is that hens lay eggs anyway when they ovulate. One a day or so. The eggs will only be fertilised if the hen has copulated with a rooster and stored its semen in her, in which case the yolk gets fertilised in her body and then the albumen and shell form around the yolk. If the egg is not fertilised, then it stays as it is - a yolk, with albumen and the shell around it. Normally, if you're buying eggs in a case as we urban folk tend to do, it is unlikely that a rooster will be found among these industrial chickens. Even if it is, a chick wont develop unless the right temperature and time is allowed it to form. If you are in England, the stamp of a red lion guarantees unfertilised eggs.

However, free range eggs could have been fertilised. In which case, a clumpy white lump near the yolk denotes a baby chick, which would never have grown anyway, since it is in the box in your frig. This is for the strict eggetarians like myself who want a clear conscience. Of course, now we, (attempting-to-be-conscientious eggetarians) are faced with another issue - we support free range eggs because it means hens are brought up in a nice environment and allowed to run about and fed natural foods, and not injected with chemicals and imprisoned in a foot-by-foot space in a factory. So NOW what do we do? Eat possibly-fertilised free range eggs or unfertilised-inhuman-condition factory eggs?

Sigh. I set off to solve one problem and ended up encountering another. In the meantime, I shall reside in Bombay in blissful ignorance and righteous complacency stemming from my argument above and order my eggs (originating in an unknown hen and finding its way into an unseen box) at the club. Ta!