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Comment by DavidWoof | Hacker News Reader

> 1885...Two eggs, fried or boiled, accompanied by the invariable boiled potato, fetch from 10 to 15 cents; steak 15 cents; sirloin, 25 cents; plain omelet, 25 cents;

10c for two fried eggs, but 25c for a plain omelet? Did omelet mean something other other than eggs back then? Or is it that "omelet" implies cooked fresh, while boiled and fried eggs are cooked in bulk and served cold?

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Yeah weird the egg based dishes consistently seem to outprice steak:

1860 The Globe, Salt Lake City: Porter House Steak (25¢), Ham & Eggs (37½¢), Bowl of Oyster Soup (1.00).

1865 The Pioneer Restaurant, Portland OR: Porter House Steak (20¢), Sirloin Steak (15¢), Ham & Eggs (25¢), Apple, Prune, or Pear Sauce (5¢), Cranberry, Apple, or Custard Pie (5¢).

I wonder if it predated industrial-scale egg farming?

came here to ask this: how was steak less expensive than ham'n eggs?

American West was very good for raising enormous herds of cattle. Cowboys are literally boys who take care of cows.

Eggs were a only made in spring and summer

Prior to electricity and lighting, eggs weren't available the same way all the year. Primarily, they were a spring and summer item. This is one of the reasons cakes are special occasion (eggs and work, really) and the reason for eggs for easter and spring celebrations.

You get free grass to feed your cattle, the railroad to transport it and there are a lot of steak on a cow.

Meanwhile you don't have an industrial production of eggs, so you get at best one egg every day per chicken, more likely one or two every three days. That is of course if you assume it is egg season.

A chicken in every pot was a slogan for Johnsons great society, because chicken was a luxury. It would have stayed that way, but then capitalism happened.

Its very possible the omelet contained more eggs, 4-5 would make some sort of sense for these prices.

2 eggs is indeed a small omelette. Cooking for myself I'd usually have 3 (large) eggs, and probably a slice of toast. I realise that's pretty meaningless without putting a face (/body) to the comment, but I don't think that's unusual/a lot at all.

I mean if you imagine putting one fried egg on another, a two egg omelette's going to be smaller than that (losing some to the fold).

Omelets take a fair bit more attention from the cook than doing a big batch of fried or boiled eggs all at once.

That's like paying say £2.50 for the fried eggs, and £6.25 for the omelette today.

That seems fine to me? I'd probably expect some toast with the eggs too.

(The steak in the middle does seem more of an outlier, but you called out the omelette so am I. :))

Omeletes are eggs with extra ingredients (ham, peppers, etc.)

I believe it says “plain omelette” which I read to mean at most they added cheese.

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