Recipe: Myrtle's Deviled Eggs

Jane Riley is sharing the following information with the Collard Patch:

Hello. I’m Jane Riley, Mary Lou’s cousin. Although we think differently, we have managed to collaborate on two books—Solomon’s Porch, a novel, and Flavored with Love, our cookbook. Go to www.FwlCookbook.com to buy these books.

When I was reading Elizabeth Halley’s testimonial, which Mary Lou placed at the bottom of the www.FwlCookbook.com home page, I noticed that she mentioned the story about scrambled eggs. I’ll share it with you. Here it is, along with the recipe that accompanies it in Flavored with Love.

Myrtle Hathorn Gregg Jordan, who was once a sickly child, matured into a beautiful healthy woman. Seeing her as an adult, no one would have believed she almost died from malaria. While two of her older sisters, Katie and Rosa, worked in the field, Myrtle had the job of taking them a fruit jar of cool water. On the way to the field she would stop to play or rest, and eventually she would need a nap before she could finish the short trip. Katie and Rosa remained thirsty. Because of her overwhelming fatigue, they would find their frail sister asleep beside the road and once in the road on the way to the field when they went home for lunch.

One Saturday Mary Jane and Bud Hathorn left the two of the older girls in charge of the younger siblings while the parents rode the wagon into town to barter produce for staples. Tired of Myrtle’s puniness, Rosa and Katie devised a plan to improve her health. “Myrtle, what would you like to eat to fatten you up? Just name anything you want and we’ll cook all you can eat while Mama’s gone.”

“Scrambled eggs,” Myrtle said.

Rosa cooked while Katie watched the road. Immediately after Rosa set a plate of six buttered, salted, and peppered scrambled eggs in front of Myrtle, Katie yelled, “Mama and Papa are coming up the road!”

Myrtle had to eat fast.

“I ain’t hungry.”

“You have to eat them eggs,” Rosas insisted.

“No, I ain’t hungry! I can’t.”

“Mama and Papa’ll whip me for wasting,” Rosa said. “Eat ’em, Myrtle, eat ’em.” She shoveled them into Myrtle’s mouth. “Eeeat’ em, Myrtle, Eat ’em.”

Myrtle gained a new respect for eggs that day, and when she matured she became an excellent egg cook. She could make light meringue that never collapsed, she understood how to cook an omelet, and she could make unique deviled eggs.

Although some of the dishes she prepared had their own unique taste and style, all of her food was delectable. For example, her deviled eggs were different from anybody else’s because she added a secret ingredient; but at all-day singing and dinner on the grounds, folks ate hers first. The mischievous children Buddy and Mary Lou would filch a few on the way to church because they knew those eggs would be gone by the time they made it down the long line of tables covered with bed sheets.

Each farmwoman stood behind her food proudly and served the saints. Most stations had identical food: fried chicken, ham, creamed potatoes, gravy, biscuits, cornbread, fried corn, lima beans, fried okra, batter-fried eggplant, fried summer squash, sliced tomatoes, pickles, banana pudding, yellow-layer cake with chocolate icing, and gallons of sugar-sweet iced tea.

Nobody in the row of picnic tables behind Fellowship Baptist Church had any food better than Myrtle Gregg’s deviled eggs.

Myrtle’s Deviled Eggs
18 medium eggs
2 tablespoons chopped sweet pickles
2 teaspoons prepared yellow mustard
4 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 can (3 ounces) potted meat
3 shakes of salt
1 shake of black pepper

Boil and peel the eggs. (Start the eggs in a saucepan ⅔ full of cool water. Bring them to a boil slowly and let boil 5 minutes. Leave them cooling until they can be handled easily. Peel them in cool water.) Cut them in halves. Remove the yolks and mash them along with the other ingredients. Fill the whites.


Notes
As a resident of Louisiana, Mary Lou stirs in a shake of cayenne.
Since she is a kitchen klutz, she usually plans to demolish at least 3 eggs. Final results count.
After piling the mixture high into the egg whites, she garnishes the eggs with a tiny shake of paprika. Too much paprika will make the eggs taste bitter.
If you want to need some fancy deviled eggs, run the mix through the food processor, and put it in a pastry bag. Squirt it through a star tip into the egg whites. You may need to add more mayonnaise.