green eggs and ham

humpty dumpty sat on a wall
had
a
great
f
a
l
l


Humpty Dumpty and Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham are two stories that I grew up hearing.. one is about an egg that fell off a wall, the other is an absurd story of green eggs and ham and how Sam doesn't like them. These are particularly easy to remember, I don't know why, but they have one thing in common: they involve food, and in fact they revolve around food and what kinds of interaction story characters engage in with them. Humpty the egg had a great fall, straightl off a wall, and was cracked and shattered - as eggs are wont to do. He was never put together again, even with all the King's men coming to help... and so I knew that eggs cannot be dropped if they are to be cooked later on, for they need to be cracked over a bowl or pan, not splattered all over the kitchen floor. Green eggs and ham is just ... green. Green foods usually include vegetables and such, not eggs and ham, so this is a memorable story not because it teaches a lesson or has anything like that, but because it's such an unusual account of one character's interaction with food that would have been normal - but isn't, because of its awesome color.

image made by someone else