Dear South, how could you keep this secret from me? For all of these years? Why did I have to learn it in Florida, of all places, and not South Georgia?
Why didn’t you tell me you can add a hard-boiled egg to a low country boil? Maybe because it’s so good. It may be the best hard-boiled egg I’ve ever had.
Down at a crab place in Florida, my wife and I noticed eggs mentioned on the menu. We’ve eaten there several times through the years and never noticed eggs being available.
We noticed it in passing. She ordered a pound of crab. I ordered the low country boil.
I expected the low country boil that I met more than 30 years ago in South Georgia. A low country boil of crab legs, shrimp, sausage, corn on the cob and baby potatoes. Some Old Bay. Some melted butter.
You shared that, South. I’d never heard of or tasted a low country boil until I moved to Georgia 35 years ago. From the Mountain State of West Virginia, I’d spent nearly 30 years without the sweet knowledge and delightful taste of a low country boil.
I’d never even tasted crab before.
The dish was served at the family house of an old girlfriend in Atlanta, where she was introducing me for the first time.
I kinda peeled the shrimp. I gobbled up the sausage. I ate the corn. I ate one baby potato (a habit which has never changed. Potatoes seem like a waste in a low country boil, to me). The Old Bay seasoning was a tasty, tangy, messy-fingered treat. The melted dipping butter a pure joy.
But the crab legs flummoxed me. How was I supposed to eat these bony, spiky things? I watched my girlfriend and her family, snapping, cracking, pulling the meat from the shell tubes.
I didn’t want to admit crab legs might as well be from another planet to me. I lived nearly 30 years in this world and never encountered them. So I figured to watch them and fake it.
But you can’t fake knowing how to crack the riddle of crab legs, not with that mix of butter, Old Bay, hard spikes and slippery shells. It requires finesse over brute force.
It proved too much for my inexperienced fingers and I had applied too much force. The crab leg ejected from my hand like a cart-wheeling missile. It twirled past the faces of my old girlfriend’s family slinging melted butter and Old Bay and crashed into a wall before clattering to the floor.
It didn’t help that in my frustration the AWOL crab leg’s flight was accompanied by a roaring curse from me.
The entire table went quiet. Red-faced, I said I grew up in the hills and we never had crab or a low country boil (at least not in my experience).
The girlfriend’s family immediately taught me the fine art of cracking crab legs and properly peeling shrimp. But there were no hard-boiled eggs.
Since, I’ve eaten low country boils after skeet shoots, in homes and restaurants. I’ve had it prepared by numerous people in numerous places. We’ve made it several times in our house and I’ve introduced it to family members. But never with a hard-boiled egg.
Not until a couple of weeks ago.
At the Florida restaurant, an already peeled hard-boiled egg was included with my low country boil.
I told the waiter we’d never seen it on the menu. He said it’s always been on the menu. I didn’t argue but we’ve eaten there a dozen or more times through the years. It’s never been on the menu and I’d never received an egg. Until now.
It was a revelation.
One taste and it seems so natural that, of course, you should boil some eggs with a dish called a low country boil. An idea so simple, so wonderful, so delicious, I wanted to hit myself with a twirling crab leg that I hadn’t thought of it.
The waiter came by a few minutes later and asked about the egg. I shared my excitement for this culinary discovery.
And then the waiter said: You must not be from the South.
I’m not but I’ve been here for 35 years.
Later, I recalled meeting a man back in late 1989 in Berrien County. I’d moved here only a couple of weeks earlier. He said he’d moved to South Georgia about 40 years earlier, adding with a grin, “they considered me a tenderfoot until I’d been here 30 years. They’re starting to warm up to me now.”
With the egg, I finally understand what he meant.
Since, I’ve mentioned it to several people, including my oldest son, who said, of course, you can get an egg with a low country boil. We were at a local crab restaurant recently. There’s no mention anywhere of eggs on the menu, but if you ask for an egg, they’ll bring one to you. But you have to ask and you have to know to ask.
But that’s OK, dear South, it didn’t hurt my feelings, not even when that waiter said, you must not be from the South.
I just ordered another egg.

Dean Poling is the former editor of The Valdosta Daily Times and The Tifton Gazette.