Eggs and Bacon

Which came first—the chicken or the egg? The correct answer might just be the egg cup. Images of egg cups were found in Turkish mosaics dating back to 3 AD. Who knew…

I recently picked up the dandy one pictured here. I’m not too big on boiled eggs, though maybe this will change my perspective. I bought it as more of an accessory for my orange-accented kitchen. It did get me thinking about the origin of egg cups…So I dug up a few interesting bits of information that eventually led to a scrambled game of six degrees of separation:

1. The first egg cups were made of wood, though silver ones appeared around the same time. These days you can find them made of porcelain, glass and a host of other materials.
2. During the19th century, silver egg cups were often gilded inside so that the sulphur from the egg did not stain them. A century earlier, France’s King Louis XV—a fan of the egg cup—helped drive its popularity. Rumor was he could decapitate an egg’s “head” with a single stroke.
3. Opposite the head is the base, often called the “footie,” and it of course acts to stabilize the cup.
4. Perhaps because of the sturdy footie, the Sazerac, one of the world’s oldest cocktails (invented in a New Orleans apothecary), was originally served in an egg cup, or a “coquetier.” Side note: It was once thought the term “cocktail” derived from a mispronunciation of this French word. However, that is not the case.
5. In Cocktail, the ‘80s classic, Tom Cruise mixed up several liquid concoctions (though he did not serve them in egg cups).
6. A few years later, Tom Cruise starred in A Few Good Men with none other than Kevin Bacon.

And there you have it.