Make an Omelet, Set It on Fire
Sometimes I need to eat my feelings, and those feelings are eggs, sugar, alcohol, and fire in the form of an omelet au rhum. A sweet omelet may seem anathema to palates accustomed to cheese, vegetables, herbs, and other savory egg accoutrement, but it actually works surprisingly well in addition to providing some soul-soothing pyrotechnics. This isn't something that I whipped up one tipsy night while playing with matches on my lonesome; it's a vintage recipe from Thomas J. Murrey's 1885 cookbook Breakfast Dainties, and seemingly a popular dish on hotel and cruise ship menus in the first chunk of the 20th century, because who doesn't love a slight element of danger with their morning meal? Most flambé dishes have been relegated to mega meat dishes and the dessert zone, but we're living in weird times now where the rules no longer apply. Eat your feelings. Consume the fire. Let it fuel you from within. (Or just, like, follow the recipe, blow out the fire, and enjoy a truly delicious, crackling sugar-topped omelet with most of the alcohol burned off.)
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Omelet au Rhum
From Breakfast Dainties by Thomas J. Murrey, 1885
Prepare an omelet as has been directed, fold it, and turn out on a hot dish; dust a liberal quantity of powdered sugar over it, and singe the sugar into neat stripes with a hot iron rod, heated on the coals. Pour a wine-glassful of warmed Jamaica rum around it, and when on the table set fire to it. With a tablespoon dash the burning rum over the omelet, blow out the fire, and serve.
