When discussing the perfect breakfast, I have mentioned the Hokonui egg. But there was much on this important subject I left unsaid.
We all understand the better breakfast is like a sacrament - a private affair untroubled by the world outside. Breakfast heralds the awakening of the senses, and the rising of a new day. Its centrepiece is a good sound egg.
While I am not a rabid animal rightsist, I believe decent citizens ought not purchase eggs laid by prisoners in chook concentration camps. This leaves us a choice of barn or free range eggs.
I'd thought the life of the barn fowl was probably not that flash either, but a friend who knows a friend who farms free range eggs says chooks aren't keen outdoors folk - in fact, he has a devil of a job convincing them they should leave the barn to roam the range.
So either egg is acceptable. Most supermarket eggs are so uniformly coloured and standard sized, it seems they come from hens who've lost their creative spark.
Not so the excellent eggs of the Hokonui Mixed Grade Dozen. From Southland moonshine country, these eggs are individual works. They have shells of varied colours, bright yolks, are often dusted with farmyard debris, and I've had a couple that were off.
Hokonuis are birthed in large sizes which range from merely very big to disgraceful.
I had the task of feeding the fowls and collecting their eggs in our family's chookyard. Any child who has done this knows hens become very vocal when you try to remove their eggs. Cases of assault are not uncommon.
So when I ponder the size of the Hokonui egg I realise two things. First, their mothers must be a super breed so large the public may be endangered should they escape - and second, the Hokonui egg gatherers are brave people indeed. Theirs is an enterprise which deserves support.
Younger people may not know that eggs were once more than breakfast fare, and an important part of Kiwi dining out. In those times, when our masters thought public order would be threatened should we be allowed wine with meals, there were few licensed restaurants, and cafe menus had a military uniformity.
Always, the choice was sausages and eggs for the humble, steak and eggs for the middle classes, and the full monty - the mixed grill (with eggs) - if you were of the silk. Each was accompanied by chips, a token salad, and a tomato sauce bottle delivered by a uniformed waitress called Beryl.
Fine dining has left the fried egg behind because vignerons have yet to invent a wine which complements it. The closest match I've seen was an ultra-cheapie we bought in plastic half-gallon flagons in student days.
This valued brew was sold as Babich's Dry Red, but known universally as Babich's Dry Retch. It certainly scrambled us.
I counted on the safety of eggs the first time I experimented with food exotica in the form of a Chinese restaurant. I'd moved to the big smoke, and Auckland had a small Chinatown in Grey's Avenue, a street rumoured to be cat-free because of the contents of its chicken chow meins.
I took a very attractive platinum blonde who was, frankly, well out of my league. She modelled for a city department store, and maybe thought I was safe because we'd been to bible class together, and her dad knew my address. She ordered chop suey and set to it dexterously with chop sticks.
I cagily chose Egg Foo Yong as it seemed related to an omelette, but was soon adding Oriental paisley patterns to my tie.
I tried a clever joke.
''They'd solve the problem of China's starving millions with one shipload of knives and forks.''
She laughed gaily, but we seemed headed to that neutered conclusion only women think desirable.
''Just good friends.''
Then, soon after we'd cleaned up the fried rice and sent for the account, she totally floored me.
''Should we do it Dutch?''
Phwoaah!
Flustered, I spilled the notes from my wallet, wondering if this was the effect of my new Brylcreem. The next morning a more sophisticated friend brought me back to earth, explaining that as ''Dutch'' simply meant splitting the bill, we'd already done it.
The inexperienced young man should be allowed his naivety. I don't know what's happened to my friend Susie, but I'm sure she remains a good egg.
John Lapsley is an Arrowtown writer.
