The Cecilnomicon - Down Among the Egg Men

This past weekend, Salem was host to a collection of wondrous events - the mass clean up efforts that took place across the city, the HAWK walk on the Common, Angie Miller being vested in song and glory, and, of course, one of the highlights of my year: Salem EggFest.

Now, if you’re already familiar with Salem EggFest, then I don’t really need to say anything else to you except for yes, I spoke with The Grand Jerry and was granted approval to break EggFest Byline 630-B to write this article. Given the secretive nature of EggFest that helps keep it pure, I will be changing the names of the participants and their establishments so as to keep everything cool. I am a master cryptographer, I doubt any could crack my code. Rest easy, my dozens.

If you are not familiar with EggFest, then I feel sorry for you. Not in a pitying way, mind you, I’m sure, no, confident that you are an amazing person whose accomplishments are that of a modern day Alexander the Great. But remember that Alexander the Great, for all his conquests, never tasted chocolate. Don’t you feel a bit sorry for a dude who has never tasted chocolate, regardless of how many victories he won? That’s how I feel about anyone who has not experienced Salem’s underground egg cooking contest.

Anyways, I was happy to see the bonfire signalling the start of EggFest on Saturday night. From its first flickering light, I knew the black van with my EggFest invitation would be by in but a few hours. I prepared, anointing my forehead with albumen and vitellus, filling my gut with the Cursed Brew in order to facilitate the Purge, and walking the widdershins steps around my basement breakfast altar. Right on time, the black van arrived with my invitation and placed it swiftly over my head. The velvet felt cool upon my skin.

I’m not sure how long it took to arrive at EggFest - the Cursed Brew wrecks havoc with your sense of time. The location was a familiar one. Like most of the North American EggFests, Salem’s event tends to rotate between a handful of trusted locations. This year’s event was beneath a bridge I will not name. Not my favorite venue for the event, but that’s life. I miss the Rockmore.

As the child of He Who Beats and She Who Cracks, I am neither judge nor contestant at the EggFest. My duties are ceremonial. I interrogate the chickens to ensure quality building materials, sing the second verse of Weeping Jenny, and ring the eggshell gong that calls the black robed judges into existence.

But enough about me! You’re probably more interested in contestants and what they had to offer. Here are a few of the standouts, names changed as per the will of The Grand Jerry.

Glug Glug

Bespoke Concept of Egg As Conveyed Through Theremin, Beard, and Vibration

You have to hand it to Glug Glug, they just do not give up. Despite not actually serving many egg based foods at their restaurant, every year they turn up at EggFest and every year they swing for the fences. This year’s dish, if you would call it that, consisted of three people who will always be younger, more interesting, and have more fun than you sitting around the diner in a triangle talking about all the fun they had at a event you didn’t even know about the night before. Meanwhile, popular music that you don’t really understand plays in the background. At first, the din is comforting, but then the conversants begin to stamp their feet and you don’t know why. The music grows and becomes more obscure until bewildered, you spring up from your chair and burst out of the triangle just as a chick bursts free of its shell. I thought the experience striking, but the judges, who have likely forgotten their humanity in the depths of their robes and aeons, did not seem to connect with it.

Crimson’s Foodstuffs Named After an Earl

Eggs Over Mauling

When you think of the 500 pound gorilla of the Salem breakfast scene, you think of Crimson’s. Sadly, due to short sighted regulations by the Board of Health, they don’t let Chef JoJo cook in the restaurant any more. I don’t know about you, but if I want to eat my breakfast of smashed eggs and toast while cowering in the corner straining to avoid eye contact with a rampaging silverback gorilla wearing a chef’s hat, that should be my right as a free American. It’s in the Constitution, people! Anyways, JoJo was at the top of his game this weekend. Soon after his dish was served, he managed to break free of his iron cooking chains and attacked one of the judges. As the judge melted into ichor, its compatriots thrummed their approval.

Geyser Locality

Eggs Poached In A Mother’s Sorrow

Another establishment savvy enough to play to the judges. To me, the eggs were too salty having been simmered in a pan filled with tears. I thought the egg cups fashioned from never used baby shoes were a bit over the top, but the surviving judges really enjoyed them, holding them close to the darkness where what we would call their faces resided as they devoured the dish with relish. (The relish was dill, by the way)

Multinational Building Involving Flapjacks

Root’n Toot’n Fresh and Fruit’n Breakfast

Seriously, how do these suits keep finding out about EggFest? I know the event Bylaws state that anyone with a spatula who shows up must be allowed to cook, but that slop was just beyond the pale. The judges did not like it either and expressed their displeasure immediately. On an unrelated note, please keep an eye on my eBay page for some seriously discounted Armani suits I’m selling as is. Even with the extensive dry cleaning bills, I can still promise you good value for your money.

Cousin’s

Hardboiled Seven Species Egg

A hummingbird egg in a robin egg in a raven egg in a duck egg in a chicken egg in an emu egg in an ostrich egg. The wizardry required to nest all these eggs one inside the other is simply something I don’t want to consider. The taste, though! The first bite was terrible, but with each level, the flavors began to layer upon themselves so that by the time I tasted my last bite, I was crying. I heard music, a symphony of flavor found in seven bites.

The 64th Regiment’s Bad Day

Egg Shooters

I admit it. Every year at EggFest there is one dish that just plain terrifies me and this one was it. I know I had survived a brush the celebrity Chef JoJo, but there’s something about having a crossbow pointed at your face that makes you second guess your reasons for attending an underground extreme egg cooking contest. I opened my mouth as wide as I could to help the cook get that hardboiled? poached? egg down my gullet with a minimum of facial damage. Second time was the charm, the egg lodging in my throat. I enjoyed the flavor while an assistant chef performed the heimlich. Was that a bit of sage I tasted? Interesting.

So there are a half dozen of the standouts from the 2013 Salem EggFest! A lot of the old classics were there too - Zr’pblat’s ‘Genuine Venusian Omelette’ (Seriously, dude, we all know those are Easter Eggs stuffed with Jello and oatmeal, you’re not fooling anyone), Sea People Roe, and that hand lettered card that sits on a black stone pedestal and reads “The Egg Is Already Inside You” that nobody seems to know anything about but every year, there it is.

Now it’s up to the judges to deliberate. The champion will be announced by the dark of the next New Moon when the judges rise up at the stroke of midnight to take the winner to their bleak realm of shadows and regret. My heartiest congratulations to the champion and deepest condolences to his or her family.

Looking forward to next year!