A road trip and pickled eggs

During the summer of 2001, I took the road trip of a lifetime.

A close friend was relocating from Asheville to Oakland, California, bound for grad school, and asked if I’d accompany her on the cross-country drive, going so far as to offer to cover the costs of the flight home.

I was in my early 20s at the time, unmarried, with no children.

Why not, I thought? I’d yet to view, firsthand, most of the country between Mississippi and California and loved a good road trip.

We set out in early August, headed due west on I-40.

Nearly immediately, our plans became derailed. A nationwide heat wave, coupled with a vehicle whose air conditioning was broken – a minor detail my friend neglected to include in her travel companion solicitation – meant we had to re-route our trip.

Instead of making a straight trek through the southern U.S., driving exclusively on one interstate until we reached the Golden State, we moved north. From North Carolina, we headed into Tennessee, then on to Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon, before turning south and eventually making our way to the San Francisco Bay area.

It took us 8 epic days of travel.

Numerous snafus were encountered along the way, including nearly wearing out the vehicle’s brake pads entirely whilst descending a sudden 8 percent grade descent in the Badlands of South Dakota, my friend getting her long hair caught in a portable fan we’d inserted into the car’s cigarette lighter, and the transmission of the Honda Civic we were driving completely dying in Boise, Idaho, just before we set out into the very hot, very deadly desert sands of the southern portion of that state.

That said, it was one of the very best trips of my life and most assuredly an absolute highlight of my youth.

Though our travels were plagued with missteps and unforeseen hiccups, it wasn’t the challenging parts that I now remember most vividly. Instead, it was the hospitality we encountered along the entire travel route.

At every gas or travel way station we fueled up at, campground we over-nighted in, and historical or tourist destination we stopped for, folks were friendly.

They were courteous, and effusive, and curious about us, ready to assist two young women in pretty much every conceivable, neighborly way.

My takeaway, thinking about that trip with Bonnie all those years ago, was the kindness of strangers.

Well, that and all of the pickled eggs we saw at our stops.

I can think of fewer foods more potentially divisive than pickled eggs. There is either fierce devotion or profound abhorrence, with very little meeting in the middle, on these preserved foodstuffs.

I find these stances especially ironic given the fact that, though many folks know of pickled eggs, fewer have dared to sample them. I’d wager to guess this owes to the fact that they are most commonly on public display either in rural, out-of-the-way gas stations, such as those we encountered in our journey west, or dive bars of unknown repute.

The fact that they tend to be suspended in a vat of suspicious red liquid only adds to their potentially off-putting nature.

Brought to the New World by the British, who have long offered pickled eggs in their public houses and taverns, these preserves were at one time widely consumed. When their production became the province of factories, and less so from-scratch kitchens, what was once a fresh, natural food product become riddled with preservatives and stabilizers to extend the life of the eggs and render them shelf stable.

The bright red hue that once characterized eggs naturally pickled with beets has since been replaced with food dyes

All of those gas stations encountered on my journey west, so many of them with jars of pickled eggs on their counters, while not offering the iteration of this particular pickle that I prefer, were at least consistent in their kindness and congeniality.

If I had to go west, experiencing a host of travails en route, only to return home to the southern Appalachians a few weeks later, at least the road there was paved with good intentions and the kindness of strangers.

Pickled Eggs

Makes 1 dozen

You Will Need:

-1 dozen hard-boiled eggs, shelled

-3 cups water

-1 cup apple cider vinegar

-2 garlic cloves, sliced

-1 tablespoon honey

-1 tablespoon black peppercorns

-2 teaspoons sea salt

-3 to 4 fresh thyme sprigs

To Make:

1. Combine all of the ingredients except for the hard-boiled eggs in a medium-size pot. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to low and simmer 20 minutes.

2. Remove the pot from heat, cover with a lid, and leave until completely cool.

3. Place the eggs in a lidded container (a glass hinge-top canister is very handy for this purpose). Pour the cooled brine over the eggs.

4. Keep the eggs chilled in the refrigerator until serving time. The eggs are best within the first 7 days of making.