Quotes from Arthur E. Grosser

I never understood my first cooking lesson. I was six and had chicken pox, and my mother, having exhausted all other entertainments, began to explain how to boil an egg. The water must be salted. "It's to keep them from cracking." She regarded the egg. "But they still crack." We pondered this for a moment, then I nodded. Whether it cracked or not, obviously an egg had to be pacified with an offering of salt.