Here at Hooting Yard we are regularly inundated with queries relating to eggs. Here, for example, is a plaintive plea from reader Tim Thurn:

Q – When you are dining with an intimate friend, and an omelette au rhum is served, what do you do?

My spies tell me that Tim has copied out this question from Rambles In Womanland by Max O’Rell (1903), wherein the answer is given thus:

A – Without any ceremony, you take a spoon, and, taking the burning liquid, you pour it over the dish gently and unceasingly. If you are careless, and fail to keep the pink and blue flame alive, it goes out at once, and you have to eat, instead of a delicacy, a dish fit only for people who like, or are used to have, their palates scraped by rough food. If you would be sure to be successful, you will ask your friend to help you watch the flame, and you will even ask him to lift the omelette gently so that the rhum may be poured all over it until the whole of the alcohol contained in the liquor is burned out.

I might add that taking a spoon without any ceremony is easier said than done, but my remarks on that will have to wait for our series on spoons and ceremonies, which is forthcoming.