FOOD MATTERS: Nostalgic sardine omelette

I am looking at an egg, and thinking of how quintessentially composed it is. It sits in a crate or in the refrigerator minding its own business, yet it is so controversial. At least, a head of lettuce will wilt, its roots rot, and an onion will sprout green shoots; an egg's composure might be why we find them mentally comfortable to eat.

Vegans strongly disagree that the life form that an egg represents is inconsequential. In their opinion, we are eating potential life. Just because an egg is not waving its hands does not mean its expression of life should be considered inferior.

(It must be apparent from my expose on veganism that I would not make a very good vegan In 1988, one British health minister's career was brought to an abrupt end over eggs - when she prematurely declared that most eggs in Britain had salmonella bacteria. Egg prices fell dramatically overnight as a result of her declaration. She became public enemy number 1 in the egg industry, antichrist even.

We Nigerians seem to be immune to all these "oyinbo" hang-ups. I would never sit in a room full of Nigerians and debate whether an egg has rights. I am not that progressive... or brave. Furthermore one can only effectively worry about salmonella in a country where there is constant electricity and refrigeration. Here, our eggs happily have no sell by date. The egg has salmonella does it? Too bad for the egg! It is our typical "we are in God's hands" response to things we feel we can do nothing about. To disturbing facts about food, like the reality of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease our Nigerian response was along the lines -"the cow is mad is it? Never mind, once it's cooked well-well, you will never know whether it was mad or just neurotic." My maternal grandfather owned a poultry farm. He was the source of my introduction to guinea fowl, duck and turkey eggs.

Because I had an early relationship with eggs, I know to an acute degree what my perfect egg is like. Its shell must be bronze, or the colour of a recycled manilla envelope, the yolk inside, the energetic luminous complexion of yellow maize. In size, it must be mediocre. When it is broken into hot oil, it must spread no further than four to five inches; the yolk must spread not at all. It must fall into the pan and not budge an inch...And the egg must smell like an egg.

The last requirement is not stating the obvious: I travelled to Houston in 2003 for five months and did not encounter one fried egg in that time that smelled like a fried egg! Because my grandfather was a farmer, I can be nostalgic about a time when an egg did not have a remarkable unit value. Both in terms of purchase and eating the "egg ubuntu" applied whereby an egg was only noteworthy in the company of other eggs. There would always be a number of us eating breakfast on a Saturday morning, so the eggs would be cooked in multiples...two per person, therefore about eight to ten per meal. Perhaps one could even venture that the value of one egg "was" representative of its fragility... on the way home, you might drop one and it would not be a life and death matter.

If I really went about saying "Sardine Omelette", it would be clear that I was putting on airs since the correct way to say it is "egg with sardine". A sincere tribute to everyman's egg with sardine (even though I can never cook it as well as nostalgia can) would include two tablespoons of coconut oil, or King's ground nut oil; one tin of "Titus" sardines; six to eight eggs; a few thin slices from an onion; maybe one tomato; a quarter of a green pepper and definitely one small hot pepper.

The pepper is chopped extremely fine and tamed in the hot oil for a few minutes. The tomato is chopped and with the slices of onion and chopped green peppers added to the fried pepper and stirred until the onions are translucent. Drops of water are periodically added to the mixture to stop it from drying up. The sardines are broken up with a fork and added to the beaten up eggs with a good pinch of salt. The heat is turned down completely and the beaten eggs and sardines are added to the mixture of tomato onions and peppers in the pan.

As the eggs cook, the edges are lifted up carefully, the pan tilted, and the uncooked eggs directed under the cooked parts. Successful egg with sardine should be a slightly wobbly golden circle, not dry, but also not wet, served with delicate wedges of boiled yam or thick slices of buttered white bread.