Recipes of the Lost City: Eggs Colony

We return to The Colony, lost Upper East Side haunt of the Cafe Society, for this edition of Recipes of the Lost City. I have The Colony cookbook and it has a ton of recipes in it. It seems a shame to only post one and leave it at that.

So, this time let's see how of the dinner-jacket-and-pearls crowd did brunch back in the 1930s and 1940s. Eggs Colony is a simple enough dish, and easy to do at home, if you have the wherewithal to purchase the necessary crabmeat.

EGGS COLONY

Spread freshly cooked crabmeat over a piece of toast, place a poached egg on top, season with a few drops of Sherry.

Yum, yum, yum. Sherry for breakfast. How English. Apparently, the Colony was obsessed with crabmeat.

Don't like seafood? Here's another recipe for good measure: Oeufs au Fonds D'Artichauts Colony. It's a little harder.

OEUFS AU FONDS D'ARTICHAUTS COLONY

After boiling the artichokes remove the leaves and the chokes, leaving only the fonds. Scrape the edible part of the leaves with a silver knife, and make into a paste with butter, pepper and salt.

Poach as many eggs as are required, and very carefully lay each egg on a fond of artichoke.

Lay the paste already prepared on the eggs, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, put a tin piece of butter on each and serve very hot.

Silver knife, you oafs! If you don't have a silver knife which which to scrape the fonds, don't attempt this recipe.

(Above is the only photo of The Colony that I can find in the whole wide world. As you can see, it belongs to Oxford Galleries. To be fair to Oxford, and to make sure they don't get on my back about posting it, I'm provided a link here to Oxford's eBay listing, so you can buy the photo if you wish, and if you have $200.)