Slightly ironic

I went to work (relatively) early this Saturday and decided to get breakfast at the hospital cafeteria. I occasionally like a few over-easy eggs and toast for a weekend breakfast.

I got in line at the short-order station, and as I approached the grill, I noticed everyone had ordered over-hard eggs. OK, I thought, I guess not everyone likes gooey running yolks perfect for toast-dipping. When it was my turn to order, however, I asked for over-easy eggs. The cook responded that here at Vanderbilt they have to cook the eggs over-hard, for health reasons. After he declined my proposal to sign some sort of waiver, I settled on pancakes instead.

Once the other people's eggs were almost done cooking, in a bubbling pond of grease, mind you, he asked if they wanted cheese on them.

Cheese? On fried eggs? I thought. They all quickly said yes, please! The cook then proceeded to put a heaping pile of shredded cheddar atop each already lipid-logged chicken embryo. The grill sizzled as it morphed the cheese from shreds to goo. Then he stacked the two eggs on top of each other, and placed them into a to-go box, with a comet trail of cheese following his spatula. I envisioned at least a quarter inch of grease in the bottom of the Styrofoam container.

The woman directly ahead of me ordered pancakes as well. When hers were ready, the cook asked if she wanted butter on them. She replied in the positive, and he applied a fat spiral of semi-liquid butter to the top of both of her pancakes. Upon completion of this anointment, the woman asked if he could put more on. He proceeded to cover the remaining bare spots of the pancake with butter, stacked them, and placed them into a container.

He looked at me. No butter for me, please, I said.

After I paid for my breakfast and walked back to my lab, the irony of this situation hit me. The hospital believes that a liquid egg yolk is a health hazard (which I should remind you is tightly sealed up within a few bacterially-impenetrable membranes), but sees no problem with topping fried eggs with cheese and using butter as a sauce.

This is the culture that invented sausage gravy, after all.