My Egg Affair (and a Banting Cheesecake Recipe Without Them)

Tomorrow is World Egg Day. My mom used to call eggs chicken placenta because she believed in making me aware of what I was eating. She’s a vegetarian, not surprisingly (until there’s salami, but we’re all allowed our guilty pleasures). World Egg Day may be on your top 10 list of least exciting events (right up there with Caps Lock Day  – which is on the 22nd of October, IF ANYONE CARES). But, for me, World Egg Day means something. It reminds me of:

Insults

One of my favourite friends once called me an egg before we were friends. We were 14, I’d got her surname wrong, and she said, “What an egg!” I was completely insulted. I still rock back and forth thinking of it. Not really. We turned out to be great friends and it still makes me giggle that that’s the worst she could come up with. And, she wasn’t wrong. She was wearing a name badge, after all.

Road Trips

My mom (the chicken placenta one) is a little perverse in all the most amusing of ways. She’d wait for a road trip to make eggs that were boiled for so long that they were turning blue. The smell was inescapable, especially in the days of our gold Opel Rekord, which made every musty scent just a little more intense. We’re heading to Cape Town in a few weeks’ time and I think I’ll impart this sulphurous gift to my own family and test their love for me. I still prefer powdery egg with that familiar green-blue tinge.

Banting

Any committed Banter knows that eggs are your superfood, your go-to, your refuge when the menu is a carb-riddled nightmare. Omellettes, bacon and eggs, crustless quiches…send them my way! I care not for your brie and fig pizza. That’s not true. I care.

Cheesecake

I’m thoroughly torn on a moral level when it comes to cheesecake. It’s my one cheat, my one indulgence. But, and this is a biggy, the fridge cheesecakes often have raw egg white. Every part of me reels at the horror of eating raw egg white. Until I remember. Cheesecake. Such a tough tug-of-war for my standards. Lucky for me, I have a fab Banting cheesecake recipe that “skriks vir niks”. Maybe our Cape Town hosts would appreciate that more than my boiled egg delights. They live in one of those historical homes that overlook the Waterfront. That’s a little more culture than I’m used to. I should reign myself in.

Here’s the recipe: