Yesterday was National Deviled Eggs Day in the US, and as a devotee of canapes of any sort, I can think of no finer finger food to be nationally commemorated. I’ve already posted my recipe for deviled eggs so won’t repeat it here, but I would like to take a moment or two to speak of my love for the satanic ova.

I am of a generation (perhaps the last) that was raised on deviled eggs. Not as a regular meal you understand, but as a delicacy that was present at the buffet or passed around the room at any party my parents ever threw. One of my earliest culinary memories is of helping my mother peel egg after hard-boiled egg, and eventually learning the trick of rolling the egg gently but firmly before peeling, so as to crackle the shell and help release that clingfilm-y layer that kept the shell stuck to the white. As a child without a significant sweet tooth, I considered licking out the bowl with the deviling mixture far more of a treat than any bowl with cookie dough or frosting. I would even go so far as to say that the spicy taste of the deviling mix was possibly  my first childish acceptance of more complex, grown up flavours.

By the way, the term “deviled” basically refers to adding spice and heat to otherwise fairly bland food, or to breakfast meats. Deviled kidneys were long a traditional staple of the British breakfast table, and are now (as is much offal) making rather a comeback on the UK culinary scene. And indeed the traditional ingredients of mustard, cayenne pepper, and Worcestershire Sauce are usually present and correct in your average deviled egg.

Sadly, the deviled egg has by and large gone the way of the Black Forest gateau and the key party in that it seems to have disappeared from the social scene sometime around the mid- eighties.  This may well have had something to do with the rise of nouvelle cuisine and a trend toward ever-lighter food. Indeed in this day and age most canapes seem to consist of a small puddle of something in a white ceramic spoon, or a single lonely scallop on a rosemary spear. The downright spuriously bad press that eggs have received over the last couple of decades no doubt also played a part, particularly the absolutely fallacious reports that eggs contained hideously high levels of cholesterol and should therefore be rationed like chocolate during the war years. Whilst eggs do contain a high level of cholesterol, they do not cause you to create cholesterol whilst digesting them, so the cholesterol they contain goes harmlessly through you. Also, eggs are high in protein and very low in saturated fats, so are an extremely healthy food group. Hard-boiled, however, they do have much more deserved reputation for their binding properties, so hostesses over the years may well have eventually shied away from deliberately constipating their party guests.

Never so in my parents house, or in mine. Given our tendency to serve cheap wine, we always figured that- digestively speaking- things would work out in the end. And of late I have discovered that any eggs left over from a party keep very well for a few days in the fridge, and are even a standby for long train journeys, picnics, and the like. Regardless, I served them for my mother’s last birthday.  My family’s love of them aside, it seemed only appropriate to make for her what she had first taught me to make. I also now, when making egg salad, make deviled egg salad instead. Same ingredients as a deviled egg, only you add in the roughly chopped egg whites, and go a little more easy on the mayo.  This makes for fabulous egg salad sandwiches, and so I served them at my mother’s wake, in loving commemoration.

But I don’t see them making a comeback any time soon. That is unless some particularly sadistic chef decides to start making his staff prepare those devilishly tiny quails eggs in this time-honoured manner as some sort of amuse bouche or retro-joke canape.  That would be fine by me, and really, given their title, only appropriate.