The Difference
“You know this isn’t a delicacy, right?” Ellie smiled, so beautiful it hurt even reflected off the mirror in the back of the bar.
I froze. Hard, almost cartilaginous white lay between my teeth, with all the give of a bouncy ball. I turned towards her.
“I’m sorry?” I had heard her, my question felt more like a demand for her apology.
“It’s not some big deal. It’s not this amazing taste sensation you will kick yourself for never having tried.”
“I know,” I lied.
“You don’t have to keep going. It’s just a bar food where I’m from. Like pickled pigs feet here. Nobody eats those.”
But we both knew she was wrong. I began to uncrack the remainder of the shell, exposing more white. Yellow yolk was visible near the bottom. She rapped hers on the table a few times and shucked the shell. Her fingers removed the white on the top, sprinkled pepper from a small dish on to hers, and popped the whole thing in her mouth.
She began chewing with relish.
“Why are you eating it, then,” I asked, “if it isn’t so great?”
She held up her finger to her mouth. Her chewing continued as she blinked slowly.
I flicked at the white; knocked pieces of it to the table. I removed the yolk and looked at it before placing it on my tongue. It tasted like yolk. Rich, soft-boiled, creamy, yellowness glazed my tongue.
“They remind me of my dad.” She had finished chewing. The potential for an entire duck, gone. I don’t know the least thing about veganism, or PETA rambling, but from a culinary perspective, it seemed like such a waste. Duck confit, smoked duck, breast seared in raspberry sauce, roasted over fried rice. None of that could happen now.
I brushed away more of the white. There was something underneath.
“You don’t want to do that,” she said, her smile gone.
Soon, the thing was naked. It sat in my hand like a tiny sculpture of a whole bird.
“Don’t you dare eat that,” she said.
I put my finger to my mouth and tossed the bird inside.
Nicolas Papaconstantinou
Oh, Matt… SO good to have you back, sir.
Reading this reminded me, though, that even just the tiny bit of unidentified darkness in a normal chicken egg will give me pause. I am NEVER ordering balut, is what I’m saying.
It’s also odd that the only thing this week’s pieces have in common, bar one, is how easily each writer went to a male/female interaction, inspired by the image.
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