Nomenclature

Morning Dish
2 potato, bacon, and egg breakfast tacos

Evening Dish
I ate soft-boiled eggs (2) for the first time in a long time last weekend. If ever the cliché, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder," could best be applied it was then, the very moment my teeth pierced the inner yolk. Of course I popped the entire egg in my mouth. (Any less and I ran the risk of having a mess on my chin and/or hands.) Not too many things scream glutton more than the sight of me wolfing down a glorified, compact version of an over-easy egg.

Over-easy. Soft-boiled. Suddenly, my thoughts rested squarely on egg nomenclature. When an egg is boiled, the doneness of the yolk ranges from soft to hard, and the egg is classified as such. However, when an egg is fried and flipped, the classification spectrum ranges from over-easy to over-hard. The doneness of the yolk implies...difficulty level (scratching head). Why does the naming convention differ between the two cooking methods? In my opinion, referring to the egg by its texture wins out. I rarely order eggs at a breakfast joint because I'd rather not pay for a dish I can make better at home. On the off chance I do however, you can bet I'll request my eggs "over-soft" rather than "easy-boiled" any day.