I’ve Been Thinking About: Soft Boiled Eggs
I watched Call Me By Your Name in a small theater in my hometown when I was 16 and it was the first time I was ever rendered completely speechless by a film. My friends and I shared an awkward dinner afterwards, each of us engulfed in our own processing of what we’d seen. I went home and lay in my bed staring at the ceiling and listened to Sufjan Stevens’s entire discography. There are so many things I take away from that film, but there is one that drifts in and out of my mind with more casualty than others – the soft boiled eggs.
In every breakfast the Pearlmans share at their idyllic Italian country house, there are soft boiled eggs preciously resting in porcelain egg cups. Elio and Oliver tap the tops of the eggs gently with their spoons and ritually scoop the jammy insides out, passing furtive glances to create what are undoubtedly loaded tableaus of youth, sex, and desire. As I’ve become fixated on the beauty of the soft boiled egg in my own breakfast routine, I’ve been thinking a lot about their subtle grandeur. Scoring roles in Call Me By Your Name and Ever After, I thought it enchanting that this specific way of preparing what is otherwise a commodity becomes charged with preciousness.
If you choose to eat a soft boiled egg on its own and not cut in half, it requires its own little cup. This is hilarious because why on earth should one measly egg get its own baby chalice? We don’t insist on eating scrambled eggs on specific silver side-dishes, unless of course your pockets are deep and your skull is thick. The other truth about the whole ordeal is that it is, unfortunately, deeply charming. I procured my own egg cup recently – it is yellow and shaped like a chicken and my mom surprised me with it. While I resent the Substackification of romanticizing every minute detail of your life to the point of trying to make your life palatable for yourself and seemingly unattainable to everyone else, I will admit that this small, whimsical addition to the dishes has brought me substantial joy and does feel romantic.
There is much more to be said here about the role of eggs in film generally. I recently watched Cool Hand Luke, where Paul Newman eats 50 hard boiled eggs while in prison in Florida. He finishes the feat lying on a wooden table in an uncanny crucifixion. It is starkly opposite to Elio and Oliver and their eggs in Call Me By Your Name. Hard vs. soft boiled, poverty vs. luxury, utility vs. leisure – with egg prices skyrocketing and bird flu abound, it is hard to not look for deeper meaning in the media we consume. Initially, I was really just focusing on this charming way of preparing eggs that I’d seen in a few famously beautiful tablescapes. As I thought more about it, it became clear that it is a subtle emblem to distinguish class, sexuality, and innocence.
It is my opinion that Aimee France, yungkombucha420, for long-term fans, popularized the joy of a jammy egg and a robust breakfast in general with Gen Z audiences. France habitually takes to social media and shares her delightful spread, which often includes a perfectly jammy egg, occasionally perched in a charming and unassuming egg cup. She is an expert at capturing a modern balanced meal that is elevated yet attainable, mostly centered around the protein-rich boiled egg. The intention behind France’s eggs is the same as with such films that favor the soft-boiled: these eggs are for slow moments. In contrast, the point of Cool Hand Luke’s 50 hard-boiled eggs is speed, utility, and illustrating the obvious that there is no leisure in a South Florida prison.
I can’t say that eating my soft-boiled egg transports me to 1980s rural Italy, but I can say that the yellow ceramic chicken I eat it out of makes me smile. If getting a little cup for one little egg is what it takes to enjoy a morning, I will willingly oblige. As the world is on fire around us, maybe it makes a lot of sense to relish in the otherwise impractical ritual of a soft-boiled egg. At least we’re eating, and at least there’s one egg in front of us that is good.