What Granny Made When There Was Only One Egg Left

One Sunday morning, deep in the winter, there was one egg left in my granny's kitchen and seven of us to feed. I was eight years old, I got to the stove first, and I fried it for her. Frying it was the one thing she would never have done. She knew four things to make with the last egg in the house, and the one she made most was egg gravy. One egg, poured slow into a plain milk gravy, and all seven plates came away with some of it. This is how she did it, the one step that ruins it if you hurry, and what she cooked on the weeks there wasn't an egg in the bowl at all. I'm Ada Fugate. I was raised on Rockhouse Creek in Letcher County, Kentucky, and I learned this standing on a stool at my granny's stove. In this one: why an egg was about the richest thing in a winter kitchen. Egg gravy, kept pale, with the skillet off the fire while the egg goes in. Why a boiled egg chopped into gravy is a different dish. Cornbread that had to ride into a coal mine in one piece. One egg that held the flour on a whole skillet of chicken. A cup custard for whoever was sick in the bed. Hot water cornbread, buttermilk, and a cake with no egg, no milk and not a bit of butter. And at the very end, why Granny sat down and ate the egg I fried, and what my own boy taught me about it. Tell me down in the comments what your people did with the last egg in the house. The gravy, the bread, or a cup for whoever was sick. 0:00 One egg left, and seven of us to feed 1:20 What an egg was worth in the winter 3:31 The next Sunday, and the stool by the stove 4:59 The step that goes wrong 7:14 Where else one egg could go 10:01 The weeks with no egg at all 11:15 Why she ate the egg I fried 12:20 So that's what she did with the last egg #appalachianfood #egggravy #oldways #grannyscooking