An egg, a spoon and Ursula

“I’ve never seen a gold egg spoon, but I’m sure it would do. Whatever the material, the spoon has to have a small bowl with a fine edge on it: a thick edge can’t coax all the egg white off the inside of the shell. The handle is short, for good balance and easy handling. An egg spoon is a tiny implement that, like the Viennese breakfast ¹, cannot be improved. Like all good tools, it gives pleasure by its pure aptness. It does one thing only, but does it perfectly, and nothing else can do it. Trying to eat an egg from the shell with a normal spoon is like mending a wristwatch with a hammer.”

Ursula K. Le Guin, Without Egg: July 2011, No Time to Spare: Thinking about what matters. ²

NOTES

1. Le Guin describes her perfect breakfast earlier in her blog post. ↩
2. See Ursula K. Le Guin — 29. Without Egg ↩