Have you ever tried to poach an egg? To me, an egg’s never better than when it’s been sitting in boiling water for a few minutes, till the whites are wafting about the pan like wispy clouds adrift in a summer sky while the yolk lies in wait behind them: a glob of sun ready to pour out its rays with the prod of a fork or slice of a knife. A good poached egg is the breakfast of champions; it is nothing short of a work of art. But as with all great masterpieces, the poached egg can’t be perfected without practice, perseverance and passion. The egg-poacher must be dedicated to their work, focused on their task, and stoical in the face of culinary adversity. Which is a bit of a shit one really, as ‘focused’ and ‘stoical’ are as far down the list of adjectives to describe my breakfast-foraging morning self as it’s possible to get.
But have you ever tried to poach an egg with a PoachPod? Around a decade ago my family’s kitchen was graced by the introduction of one of these little silicone rubber wonder-cups which make that perfect egg-wobble achievable with very little effort, and even less skill. You crack an egg into the Pod and rest it on a simmering pan of water for a couple of minutes — hey presto, you’ve got yourself a poached egg. Even in the bleary-eyed confusion of breakfast preparation, with this ace up your sleeve you can’t go wrong. The end product resembles something bizarrely shaped like a tit as the egg moulds itself into the cup.
There’s a pleasing symmetry in the way that silicon products always seem to make a perky set of boobs, whether in the surgery room or on a dinner plate. And while we’re on the theme of bodily silicon insertion and animal ovum, now seems as good a time as any to mention another silicon usage that’s close to my heart: the mooncup. For the unenlightened, the mooncup is essentially a reusable tampon. I thought I’d be hard-pressed to find any silicon uses which elicit anything remotely nearing excitement from me, but it turns out that silicon’s the perfect material for a shitload of awesome purposes, from the banality of egg poaching to the downright vital task of developing safe and environmentally-friendly menstruation products. Who knew?! I never thought I’d say it, but thank God for silicon, and thank God for chemistry.
Of course, my most topical appreciation for silicon has to be its utility in baking. Eggs aren’t the only things that silicon can mould; shove some flour and sugar in there too and you’re halfway to a cakey showstopper à la Tamal from Bake Off. Last week saw my personal heartthrob (whom I reluctantly share with millions of oth- ers) narrowly miss out on the Great British Bake Off crown to the fabulous face-pulling Nadiya. As a relatively keen amateur baker myself, I can vouch for the advantages of silicon cake and bread moulds, which slide easily away from your freshly baked creation and leave a funky and often otherwise unaccomplishable design. Truly, the sky is the limit. Why you’d want a foot-shaped cake, however, is beyond me.
And as my surprisingly adulatory inspection of silicon comes to a close, here’s a little message for the freshers out there (another topical tidbit); when setting out to write this piece, I asked a friend of mine who studies chemistry if there were any particular properties of silicon I should know about before putting pen to paper. She told me that silicon is chemically very similar to carbon, but that a silicon molecule differs by having an extra shell which allows it to expand its octet (the eight electrons in its outer shell) and thus form more bonds with other elements. Essentially, silicon is pimped-out carbon. I’m sure we can all extrapolate some profound metaphorical advice from that information — probably something along the lines of forming bonds with your fellow freshers, building up layers of personality, and standing out compared to other carbon-based life forms, etc etc — but I don’t want to over-egg the pudding (yes, I know — I did just make an egg pun and a baking pun at the same time).
So there we have it: not only is silicon eggsellent (somebody stop me) for poaching stuff, collecting menstrual blood, and baking, it is also great for crafting an elaborate (if half-baked) metaphor about the fresher experience and providing cheesily convenient conclusions to student newspaper articles. Silicon, you have my heart.
