scrambled eggs

THE SETUP:
My mom bought a fancy spinning spice rack with 20 different spices.

Every day I make scrambled eggs and toast.


So, naturally, I am going to try the scrambled eggs with every single spice on the rack, randomly selecting a new spice each day. Life is one great science project. Experiment at every chance you get!

Here I will keep a running journal of my experiences. It will be gritty, personal, emotional, and above all else, brave. Read on if you can.




DAY 1: FENNEL SEEDS
I regret this already.

DAY 2: SAGE
This was much better than fennel seeds, but I also think cyanide might have been better than fennel seeds because at least that would have killed me. The sage mixed with eggy flavor wasn't terrible, they just didn't really work together. It's like that one neighbor you don't really have a problem with but you just never really talk to because he smells a lot different than you.
I've also decided to attach photos of each day. I didn't think of this until today so there will be no picture of my scrambled eggs with fennel seeds. I'll be damned if I eat that again just for a photo op.

DAY 3: OREGANO

Perhaps I should start talking like a food critic. It was, "Light on the palate." It was nice to have eggs today that didn't taste like an exorcism. Oregano is a pleasant, albeit slightly boring thing to put on scrambled eggs. This is the first one I would voluntarily eat again.

DAY 4: MARJORAM

Marjoram is the exact same thing as oregano. This is bullshit. This spice rack was advertised as having 20 different spices but it's 19. More capitalist lies.

DAY 5: SAVORY

This is the dumbest name for a spice, especially because it wasn't even that savory. It had a bit of a minty taste to it, but was otherwise fairly boring.

DAY 6: CRUSHED MINT

Ok hear me out: it's not as bad as you would think. Give it a try. "Minty Eggs" are the new Chef's Recommendation™

DAY 7: CRUSHED RED PEPPER

This one was pretty straightforward, just a little hot. I also started cooking the spices with the eggs rather than just sprinkling them on at the end. I'm hoping this will give the eggs a more full-bodied flavor and enhance the palate experience. Crushed red pepper is good though if you like spicy.

DAY 8: PIZZA SEASONING

This has been the best egg-sperience I've had so far. If you have access to pizza seasoning, go ahead and dump about half of whatever you have into some eggs, scramble those babies and eat em up. This is "the one to beat" as of now.

DAY 9: THYME

I think thyme smells really nice, but when it was cooked with the eggs, it ended up tasting like all the other generic spices. By thyme I took my second bite, I was already ready to move on to the next spice.

DAY 10: CINNAMON

This was just regular ground cinnamon, not cinnamon sugar, so the whole thing tasted like a really half-assed french toast. I would not do this again, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world. It just kind of tasted like sadness.

DAY 11: SEASONING SALT

Seasoning salt is that wacky orange salt that you put on french fries, and not scrambled eggs. I want to emphasize that you should not put it on scrambled eggs. Also, as you can see, I put a lot on my eggs here, but I wanted to make sure it was visible for the pic. That was maybe the wrong thing to do. Rip.

DAY 12: HERBS OF PROVENCE

For having the most pretentious-sounding name of all the spices I've had so far, Herbs of Provence ended up being a disappointment. I've found that a lot of the regular looking spices all taste the same: oregano, marjoram, this, savory, thyme, etc. It's a bummer.

DAY 13: BASIL
The basil on my scrambled eggs was almost good, but the flavor of the basil wasn't really strong enough to punch me in the taste buds (in a good or bad way.) If I had to guess, fresh basil leaves (instead of the crushed, dried stuff I'm using) on scrambled eggs would be really good, but this just tasted too empty for me to get behind.

DAY 14: DILL WEED

Two main points about dill weed: on eggs, it was all right. Not bad, not super great. Just kind of there. As an insult however, very good. It has entered my vernacular as my new favorite cut down. Try it out. Call someone a dill weed next time they're doing something dumb. It'll feel good, and it's kid friendly. "What are you doing ya dill weed?"

DAY 15: CORIANDER

Coriander? I hardly know her! But seriously folks, don't put this on your eggs. It's like a bizarre cilantro taste, but in tiny little balls that explode in your mouth as you eat. And in case you didn't know, cilantro-like flavors do not taste good on eggies.

DAY 16: ITALIAN SEASONING

Italian seasoning on eggs is good if you're super lame and like to be boring. It's a very safe play. I would recommend this if you have nothing else, but it didn't satisfy me. I've tasted danger, and I cannot return to benign spices like Italian seasoning.

DAY 17: BAY LEAVES

Bay leaves are good in a variety of things because you would typically just drop a whole leaf in, so you can pull it out before you eat while still getting its flavor. You don't get that with crushed bay leaves in scrambled eggs. Not only does the flavor of the bay leaf not mix well with eggs, but it felt like I was eating tiny pieces of tape with my eggs, and I've always been more of a glue guy. I didn't enjoy it.

DAY 18: CELERY SALT

This has the strong smell of funky celery and the texture of scrambled eggs while being very very salty. "It just doesn't add up," as the mathematicians would say. Though it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be (this was the spice I was dreading the most) celery salt on eggs was still a very bad egg-perience. Do not do this.

DAY 19: ROSEMARY

I've only seen rosemary as a garnish in its whole branch form on a steak in a fancy restaurant and was never really a big fan of the smell, so I had pretty low expectations going into this one. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the aroma and flavor of the rosemary spice mixed with the eggs. It is something I would add to my eggs in the future once this project is over. My only regret is that I did not add more rosemary to have an even stronger flavor than what I tasted. I think rosemary is my "dark horse" to take home the "best surprise" in this whole egg-speriment.

DAY 20 "THE LAST SUPPER": PARSLEY

I'm not going to "parse words" with you here. We ended with a disappointing, anti-climactic conclusion to this great journey we went on together. Everybody knows that fresh parsley is completely different from the dried parsley that can sit in a jar forever and never expire. This spice rack had the latter, so there really wasn't much flavor to it at all. If I had to guess, fresh parsley would have been even worse than this dried parsley, as parsley is just angrier cilantro, which is similar to coriander, which was bad on eggs. The dried parsley though? Too dull to really have an opinion one way or the other. What a let down. 

So there you have it, kids. 80 eggs. 40 pieces of toast. 20 spices. One survivor.

Below are my rankings of the spices in order of best to worst:

1. Pizza seasoning

2. Crushed red pepper

3. Rosemary

4. Italian seasoning

5. Crushed mint

T6. Basil

T6. Marjoram

T6. Oregano

T6. Herbes de Provence

T6. Savory

T6. Thyme

12. Dill weed

13. Parsley

14. Cinnamon

15. Sage

16. Bay leaves

17. Coriander

18. Seasoning salt

19. Celery salt

20. Fennel seeds

You'll notice there is a 6 way tie for sixth place. That is because a lot of these dried spices tasted too similar or bland to really be able to tell a difference between them. They are in sixth place though because while boring, none of them were outright bad like the bottom half of this list. 

Would I recommend trying this? No, because then you'd have to buy this spice rack and it's definitely not worth the money. The real winner from all of this is Costco and the Capitalists. But if you ever find yourself making some scrambled eggs and feel a little bit wild, I hope this inspires you to take some random spice you have in your house and just dump a whole bunch of it on those eggies. Life is too short to eat plain scrambled eggs.