The Soft-Boiled Egg

When I was a freshman in college, I took part in a new study abroad program that took low-level French students and sent them to study in Québec, Rouen, and Dakar. It was an incredible opportunity and one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. 

But wow was that first day in France difficult. 

I arrived jet-lagged, more than a little nauseated, and overwhelmed by trying to keep up with a flurry of important conversations in a language I had not yet mastered. 

Sitting around the dinner table with my host family after a long, nearly 48 hour day (I really did not sleep on the plane) was a kind of calming relief. The conversation settled into a pace that my limited French could at least follow, like watching a tennis match without really knowing how to play. 

And then the conversation turned to me.

My host family wanted to know what I was most excited about. Easy. The language, the museums, the travel. Then, what I was most afraid about?

I thought about it. Getting lost, maybe?

No, no, no they giggled, what are you most afraid of eating? They pointed to their plates. There were smiles on their faces and I had the distinct feeling I was being pranked. The frog legs? They prompted Or maybe escargot? 

Oh. A bit sheepishly I admitted that the worst food I had heard of so far was the soft-boiled egg. Hardly a food exclusively belonging to the French, it was on my mind because we had eaten at a café that morning that had several dishes with it as a component, and our school guide had informed us it was more common in France than the US. I’ve always been weird about eggs. The texture, the smell, all of it vaguely repulses me. It took effort to learn to like omelettes.

Oh, that one’s easy. My French host mom, stood up promptly from the table, reached into the fridge to grab an egg and set a timer. I now understood the giggles. 

The six minutes went by quickly and then there I was, little metal spoon in hand and an incredibly rapt audience. 

Now, most people have some kind of starch with their soft-boiled egg, often a baguette or bread of some kind. I happen to have a yeast allergy, so that was out of the question. Just me, this egg, and whatever god might answer my prayers. 

I gagged, loudly at the first bite. The host family cheered and laughed. For the next ten minutes the egg and I did battle. More than two glasses of water were consumed. I didn’t so much eat the egg as swallow it in parts. 

It was the first and last time I’ve ever had a boiled egg and the experience was thoroughly unpleasant, start to finish. My host family celebrated when I finished, patted me on the back and said: now you’ll be ready. And I was. I ate widely and adventurously, which had been their goal (this was a regular first-night question for their guests). 

More important that the fear of the egg itself was what it represented. At eighteen I was already fairly good at taking risks because I had wanted to be a writer and everyone told me that writers took risks. 

Still, there are some risks that are easier to stomach than others. They might make us nervous, but we get by, maybe because the reward seems so juicy. That night, I learned to take the dreaded risk, the one that does not seem to have a pay off. 

It was simply not possible that I was going to tuck into that egg and enjoy it. To say that I couldn’t bear to eat it, however, was a limiting belief and the simple, sweet, jocular environment of a rowdy dinner table made me realize that I could sit through the unpleasantness of the moment to reach the other side, and that there was purpose in doing so. 

I was reminded of this story recently and have been thinking about areas of my life where I’ve been avoiding eating that soft-boiled egg. Maybe it’s time to pour myself a glass of water and get to work.