One carton of 12 eggs costs between $4 and $6 at the Swarthmore Co-op. A 50g egg (average size) has 6g of protein. 6g × 12 = 72 → 72 ÷ 5 = 14.4g of protein per $1. This protein-to-price ratio of 14.4:1 is one of the best attainable in a food (except perhaps vegetable oil). For this reason, the egg has been my food of choice over the course of my summer stay at Swarthmore. The College during summer is a quiet place, devoid of most students and faculty, but rich with time—perfect for experiments, both academic and culinary.
Eggs are incredibly versatile and can be used in a wide variety of cooking styles; however, when sustenance is the objective, variety is relegated to a secondary role. Enter the 3-egg omelet. Requirements: pan, fork, butter, salt, eggs, and a spatula. Onions and potatoes are both valid additions, although I rarely muster the patience required by the longer cook times. One could reasonably question the choice of an omelet over scrambled eggs, as the latter requires significantly less effort. In response, I will cite the surface-area-to-volume ratio. And, as anyone can tell you, the higher SA/V ratio of scrambled eggs leads to rapid and catastrophic heat loss. This naturally leads to a far inferior dining experience—much like an 8 a.m. organic chemistry lab, where the experience quickly becomes less about content and more about survival.
Enter the omelet. I came to Swarthmore with a very old stainless steel frying pan with a copper bottom, unearthed from below my house. I did not use it during the semester simply because the Swarthmore dining hall rendered it wholly unnecessary. As a result, the reason for the pan’s burial under our house was only discovered in due process. The severely dented nature of the bottom of the pan resulted in a highly uneven cooking experience. While this can lead to a variety of challenges throughout cooking, for specifically making omelets, it is nearly impossible to get the omelet to cook evenly.
I discovered this for the first time when I attempted to flip my undercooked-on-one-half, overcooked-on-the-other-half omelet, resulting in eggs on the floor and a much more crunchy, dirt-infused texture to my breakfast. The flipping was abandoned. This drastically reduced the presence of, as Elon Musk would say, rapid, unscheduled disassemblies of egg. Instead, a simple fold technique was adopted—one more in line with the limitations of the pan. This simplified the incorporation of the omelet into my breakfast, and it has remained a stalwart for the entire summer.
The evolution of the omelet could be reasonably interpreted as an instance where Swarthmore provides the opportunity to take the time to grow and figure out what works for you and your life. However, that would be fairly dense, as frankly, it is just an omelet. Still, there’s something undeniably Swarthmorean about the whole ordeal: an initial failure, a stubborn commitment to figuring it out yourself, and eventually, a system that works—more or less.