BOILED EGGS

The world is divided into two kinds of people. Those who slice the top off their boiled eggs, and those who bash it and pick off the bits.

My mother was a slicer. When we had boiled eggs for breakfast, she would solemnly slice the tops off her three children's eggs, before sitting down to her own. It was always done with a bit of a flourish, like a fencer with an epee. The advantage was that there were never any bits of shell in the yoke; the disadvantage was that she sometimes cut too low, so there was less room for me to dip my "soldiers".

Despite - or perhaps because of - maternal instruction, I have always been a basher. I like that first bash, when the spoon cracks the shell. And the challenge of picking off the surrounding bits without burning your fingers. You then prise open the top, put in some salt, and off you go.

When all is finished, I put the bits back in the empty shell and then put the whole thing in the bin. All of my family think that this is a disgusting habit, but I can't see why. Must be some Danish thing.

Walter Blotscher