As a follow-up to my Omelette in the Turkish Mode from yesterday, I present some fairly simple instructions for another one of the many egg dishes that Robert May included in his 1660 The Accomplisht Cook. I made this sweeter treatment of eggs the same day as the omelette – it acting like a kind of dessert - but ran out of time to fully write up both recipes. The dish has a bit of history and is probably referenced by the Bard, himself. Unfortunately, or fortunately as the case maybe, “moonshine” seemingly only came to mean what it does today in the late eighteenth century, over one hundred years after Robert May talked about cooking eggs in it. No homemade alcohol in this one, but read on for what was actually a pretty interesting and tasty way to cook eggs. Once again, recipe first, then some explanation.
Eggs in Moonshine Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 sprig of rosemary
- Juice of half an orange
- Juice of half a lemon
- A dash of white wine vinegar (optional)
- 56g/ 2oz/ 4 tbsp of butter
- 2g/ ½ tsp of sugar plus more to taste for sprinkling
- 4 eggs
- A generous pinch of salt
- A generous pinch of cinnamon
- Soldiers ie. toasted or fried strips of bread (optional)
Instructions
In a small bowl, place your rosemary in your orange juice. This will allow it to steep a little before you use it. Set aside.
If you want a bit more bite to a sweet dish, add your dash of vinegar to another small bowl containing your lemon juice and also set aside.
On medium-high heat, heat your butter in a medium frying pan until foaming.
Add your orange juice with the rosemary sprig, along with your sugar, to the pan. Stir with a wooden spoon to combine. Continue to cook until boiling and the mixture is looking a little syrupy.
Turn the heat down to medium-low.
Move the rosemary sprig into the middle of the pan and carefully break your 4 eggs around it. Cook to your desired doneness but I recommend leaving the yolks runny or at least custardy.
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Take out rosemary sprig and discard.
Carefully remove the eggs to a serving platter.
Salt your eggs. Sprinkle over cinnamon and sugar (if you like sweet) and your lemon juice (and vinegar) to balance it out.
Serve, with soldiers if desired.
Historical Thoughts on “Moonshine” and “Eggs”
I have yet to figure out why exactly these eggs are “in Moonshine.” In Robert May’s time, the word was used as you would “sunshine” today. An insult that shows up in period writing is calling someone a dog who barks at the shine rather than the moon itself. In a text on a religious debate, one writer says of his opposition: “they bark at moonshine now and then, To show that they are Dogs rather then Men.” Maybe from this meaning and the fleeting nature of the moon's light, “moonshine” also meant something ephemeral and useless. Another literary jab in a religious context actually uses the name of the dish itself. The writer contends: “There will be those that...if they can but shoot a Pellet or two of Latin now and then (though no more to the purpose than Eggs and Moonshine) they'll Huff and Strut with as much Scorn and Stateliness, as the One-eyed man is said to do amongst them that are stark Blind.” In other words, he is ridiculing those that get all uppity if they can use a bit of Latin, not realising it has no relevance to the matter at hand. Or at least no more than the egg dish does. This usage actually survives in semi-modern writing. C.S. Lewis has the character of Trumpkin (played by Peter Dinklage in the recent movie) dismiss Prince Caspian’s plans in the novel that bear's the young monarch's name in the Narnia series (1952). Trumpkin says: “your Majesty knows I think the Horn--and that bit of broken stone over there and your great King Peter--and your Lion Aslan--are all eggs in moonshine.”
There is another possible instance of the dish being referenced in William Shakespeare’s King Lear. The Earl of Kent is a supporter of the King in the play and in one scene, he challenges Oswald, the chief steward of Goneril, the monarch’s antagonistic daughter. (Warning: some period insulting language incoming). In trying to instigate a duel, he yells: “Draw you rogue, for though it be night, yet the Moon shines, I 'll make a sop o' th' Moonshine of you, you whoreson Cullionly Barber-monger, draw.” A “cullion” is a vile person, coming from the Old French and Latin words for testicles; a “barber-monger” is a vacuous person, overly concern about their appearance and therefore, over-frequenting their barber. The rest should be self-explanatory. The threat from Kent is he will make Oswald a limp sop – bread or the like – used to mop up the culinary liquid of “moonshine.” Moonshine only seems to show up in cookery books in the context of eggs and/in moonshine, so as I said, this may be a reference to the dish I made.
Shakespeare was writing over fifty years before May’s 1660 book but a recipe for the dish shows up well before that. There is an anonymous collection of recipes from at least 1575 - but probably from the mid-sixteenth century - called A Proper newe Booke of Cokerye. An electronic version is hosted by the University of Giessen in Germany. One entry is instructions “To make egges in moneshyne.” With modern spellings, it reads: “Take a dish of rosewater and a dishful of sugar, and set them upon a chaffing dish, and let them boil, then take the yolks of 8 or 10 eggs new laid and put them thereto everyone from [an]other, and so let them harden a little, and so after this manner serve them forth and cast a little cinnamon and sugar upon them.” In the period, a chaffing dish was a dish on a tripod raised well above the coals, providing a lower level of heat than more direct methods.
Robert May, like he seems to do with most things, expounds and elaborates on this idea. As you can see from the images above, he provided five different versions of “Eggs in Moonshine.” The third one is a more expensive and elaborate version of the recipe from the earlier cookery book. He uses rosewater and sugar but adds wine to the syrup and adds opulent ambergris with the eggs. His first two versions don’t have a syrup but have a sauce of onions, nutmeg and, in one case, verjuice – the juice of unripe grapes or other sour fruit. The fourth uses eight or ten eggs as specified by the earlier recipe, cooked in butter with a sauce of orange and lemon juice. I based my effort on the last version which is a variation of the one that came before but combines the syrup and some rosemary with a tart sauce, as well as, sugar and cinnamon.
General Thoughts on My Adaption
Overall, I halved May’s and the earlier recipes’ proportions. I picked the last version in The Accomplisht Cook, again, in the pursuit of practicality and interest: I had rosemary not rosewater but that flavour also seemed an intriguing addition. The fourth and fifth version also had actual quantities listed for at least the eggs and the butter, which is always helpful. I did not have verjuice, so I added a splash of white wine vinegar to my finishing lemon juice. I had sippets/soldiers/strips of fried bread leftover from the omelette so I used them. May does not call for them in this dish, but I think they make an important addition.
My version of Eggs in Moonshine was really nice and was not far off from modern taste profiles. You can just get a bit of rosemary, which adds something different. It was certainly sweet but the vinegar and lemon and the savoury egg yolk cut through that. I found that as the yolk cooled, it felt and maybe therefore tasted more like custard.
Next week, something sweet again, not sure what - but probably from The Perfect Cook ie. Le Pâtissier françois.
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