Apologies for leading here with a picture not really related to the topic at hand, but this one all starts with Keith. I’ve been obsessed with Scotch Eggs ever since I witnessed the rotund weirdo (and unquestionable superior to his American counterpart Kevin) munching one during an early episode of the original British version of The Office. The Scotch Egg, as I discovered, is the irresistible combination of an entire breakfast packed into one concentrated ball, an egg jacketed with sausage meat, coated with breadcrumbs and deep fried. Not always appetizing when sold cold next to the sandwiches at a Tesco, but a respectable part of British cuisine nonetheless. They can also be classed up a bit to lighten the load on the arteries, as I learned after baking a batch of these last year, forsaking the oil and coddling the eggs in the skinned insides of some nice Cumberland sausage. Like many good things about British food, Scotch Eggs probably have an Indian origin (the nargisi kofta). Transformed by Brits from a dense curry floater to the ultimate picnic snack, the eggs changed again upon arrival in Guyana, the home of this recently discovered nightmare spider, the westernmost of that wonderful trio of South American Countries (also including Suriname and French Guiana) which stand brazenly apart from the Latin American tradition, culturally, culinarily and linguistically. While not quite the unique wonderland as Suriname, a country whose population wins my vote as the most curiously diverse on Earth (and whose Wiki is certainly worth a read), Guyana has its own interesting history, the only bastion of West Indian culture on the mainland, starting as a Dutch colony and ending as an English one. It may actually be both of these traditions that give us the egg ball, which scraps the meaty punch of the British version for a blanket of pounded cassava. As it turns out, the Dutch also have their own version of the Scotch Egg (the vogelnestje, or little bird’s nest, which is sometimes referred to as an egg ball), and while its tempting to further complicate the British version's history by investigating Scotland’s role, it turns out the name likely originates from the verb ‘scotched’, which equates to ‘fussed with’ (more here) . It’s hard to say exactly how the Egg Ball ended up in Guyana, but it’s likely its history has roots in both places. As found at Crown Heights’ Joy and Snook, one of the few Guyanese restaurants in the city, it was served with a condiment of mango sour, a mild yellow syrup of green mangoes, Scotch Bonnet peppers and spices, which adds a vinegary zing to this big, wholesome ball of starch. And so all is appropriately scotched, in yet another dish formed off centuries' worth of conquest and transfer.
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The coded language of snacks, sandwiches and seasonings, in NYC and beyond.
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