INTRO:

For all of us, learning to cook usually begins with an easy recipe.

Commentator Samantha Fields remembers that one she mastered taught her more than just how to feed herself.

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The first thing I remember learning to cook was a fried egg sandwich, in seventh grade home ec class. (Although my mom insists on pointing out that it wasn’t a fried egg at all – but more of a scrambled egg sandwich.)

Either way, it was...delicious. And since it involved the stovetop, it seemed grown-up, and therefore exciting.

For the egg sandwich lesson we were each instructed to bring in an empty tuna fish can-- with both the top and the bottom taken off, and the paper peeled away.

Once we were all set up at our little work stations, with our metal rings at the ready, we were given the go-ahead to crack an egg carefully into a bowl, and whisk it up with a fork. Next, we were instructed to tip a teaspoon or so of dill into the bowl, pour in a tiny bit of milk, and beat it all together.

Then it was time to fry it!

Here’s where the tuna can comes in. Mrs. Saint-Germain, my home ec teacher, showed us how to carefully light the burner, put a slice of butter in the pan, and wait for it to heat up just enough. Then, we placed the ring in the pan – and carefully poured the egg mixture right into the center of it … and waited.

Now came the tricky part. We were supposed to remove the ring, and flip the egg. If all went according to plan – which it generally did, since we probably always overcooked the eggs – we would wind up with a neat circle of egg.

The best part of this was that when we slid the egg onto our toasted English muffin, there was no rogue bit hanging over the side. It looked beautiful. And every bite was perfect.

When I got home from school that day, I couldn’t wait to show my mom how to make an egg sandwich. She was excited, too … Though she still couldn’t believe her daughter was being subjected to home ec class in 1996. But at least the boys were stuck learning to make sock puppets and egg sandwiches, too … and the girls had to take shop.

Plus, she was definitely into the idea of me, picky eater that I was, learning to cook.

When I pulled out the ring from the tuna can, though, she stopped me. Why in the world, she wanted to know, had the teacher taught us this? Making eggs did not need to be so complicated. I could, she pointed out, just pour the egg straight into the pan.

But this was how I’d learned, I insisted. Besides, how else was I going to get it to come out in a perfect circle?

She rolled her eyes, but left me alone after that.

For years, a few stainless steel rings that looked suspiciously like tuna cans could be found rolling around in the bottom of our kitchen cabinets, alongside the mixing bowls and the Tupperware.

Eventually, I did learn to pour the egg straight into the pan---and deal with the consequences. Life is messy, and so are eggs.

And I graduated to more complicated cooking adventures … stir fry mostly, and fajitas (…which are really just a stir fry stuck into a tortilla).

But the egg sandwich still has a special place in my heart, and in my cooking repertoire. And sometimes, I secretly wish I was still 12. Because even with practice, my eggs never come out anywhere close to perfect English-muffin-sized circles.

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BACKANNOUNCE: Samantha Fields now understands the difference between fried and scrambled eggs … and recycles all of her tuna cans.