I wonder if hawkers nowadays all used this 'modern' method. In the old days, the hawkers usually used a thin thread to slice the egg. He ties one end of the thread to something firm. The other end of the string is pulled taut with one hand and then used it to slice into the egg which is held in the other hand.
Thanks to Umami for permssion to use this photo of mee siam with hard boiled egg.
10 comments:
Interesting Chun See. I remembered a device used to slice hard boiled egg which had metal strings stretched tightly across and the mould of half an egg below. You press this downwards like a guillotine to send the hard-boiled egg to its fate. Sounds morbid some like something from Haw Par Villa's 18 levels of Hell? ;-)
It is interesting to see how hawkers sliding boiled eggs in the past, but in the 21st century many things have changed in the names of "speed & productivity". Having come this far, people could not imagine the tough life that kampong folks had gone through, especially the ladies of yester-years. Take for examples of kampong life: using kerosine stoves for cooking (an improvement over using fire-woods), carrying water from wells (many rounds) scooping & pulling the pails, back-breaking scrubbing of clothings, sewing & mending clothes, looking after many children...Let us give a salute to the ladies of yester-years (our mothers & grandmothers), and at the same time praise those scientists, inventors, innovators and many others who have made life easier.
That's so true Zen. Without women, we men are hapless... check out my post on 男人为什么须要女人 . (Vic would accuse me of "shameless advertising", but heck, that post is quite relevant to what you've mentioned here about our commendable ladies, the past and the present). Hee.
Chun See, your post reminds me of how my grannny used to extract our rotten tooth. She tied one end of a thread to a door handle, the other on the tooth itself. With a shove of the door - bang! - and out came the decayed tooth. Neat, huh? Olden days no money to visit dentist lor....
The modern Singapore females also deserve praise. They work to supplement their spouses' income, doing housework, bring up children, and some filial daughters even look after their aged parents. We should sympathize one category of women - the single mothers, who act both as mothers and fathers to their kids, and earning money to sustain them. Worst of all, many people in society ostracise them, treating them like 'pariahs' instead of lending them a helping hand.
I have not seen this method of slicing eggs but I have seen the thread method used by a duck rice stall. Anyway how difficult could slicing an egg be, no need for modern methods or tools.
Chris. Thanks for sharing about granny's tooth extraction method. Yes, my brothers and I too are familiar with that.
Is that why you are so scared of the dentist? I would have thought that compared to your granny, the dentist's methods are much more gentle.
Maybe nowadays they abandon the string method becos of hygiene consideration. Kids our generation probably had stronger stomachs.
Basically, life in the olden days was much more leisurely (read slower). Nowadays customers are not patient enough to wait for their plate of mee siam to be garnished with eggs if slicing of eggs was still done the good old-fashioned way.
Oh....thanks for sharing with me the traditional method. No wonder that I can't seem to get a hard-boiled egg nicely cut into many halves when I use a knife.
Slicing a boil egg with a string could be an old Malay practice for using on their dishes like Mee Rebus, Lontong etc. This uncanny method prevents the boiled egg from breaking apart. This way is still being used and of course hawkers nowadays may use modern mound-like devices for slicing the boiled egg.
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