Learnèd cowboy joshing on the dusty plains

Cowboy cuisine you were probably unaware of, from the tv Western Rawhide S7 E8 “Damon’s Road: Part II” (first aired 11/20/64), in a short bit in which the drovers on a cattle drive are treated to a fancy brunch out on the dusty plains (literally on the trail), with the trail boss Gil Favor (played by Eric Fleming) getting his own table (white tablecloth, nice glassware, and all). The cook, assuming the role of a French chef, appears with a dish made specially for Favor: eggs à la Robespierre!. He removes the lid from the silver serving dish to reveal what Favor confirms is indeed eggs à la Robespierre, explaining wryly:

eggs in the shell with their heads cut off

(as I took the words down on the fly). And the brief scene comes quickly to a close, with everyone returning to the main story line. Nothing draws attention to the line, which goes by in an instant. Snap.

From IMDb on the episode:


(#1) From the episode: actors Paul Brinegar (as Wishbone), Fritz Weaver (as Jonathan Damon)

Favor breaks out of jail and gets the unpaid railroad workers to demand their jobs back by lying to them that [railroad man Jonathan] Damon [played by Fritz Weaver] has had their pay money all along. A workers battle is averted with a first fight between Favor and Damon.

Besides Fleming, the series starred a young (and beautiful but ruggedly masculine) Clint Eastwood as drover Rowdy Yates. This particular episode also featured Barbara Eden as a dancehall girl.

Off with Robespierre! From Wikipedia about the celebrated beheadee:


(#2) Giacomo Aliprandi (engraver) and Giacomo Beys (illustrator), “The Death of Robespierre,” Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (source)

Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (… 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and politician, as well as one of the best known and most influential figures associated with the French Revolution. As a member of the Constituent Assembly and the Jacobin Club, Robespierre was an outspoken advocate for the citizens without a voice, for their unrestricted admission to the National Guard, to public offices, and for the right to petition. He campaigned for universal manhood suffrage, abolition of celibacy and the abolition of slavery in the French colonies. Robespierre played an important part in the agitation which brought about the fall of the French Legislative Assembly in August 1792 and the summoning of a National Convention.

As one of the leading members of the insurrectionary Paris Commune, Robespierre was elected as deputy to the French Convention early September 1792. He is best known for his role what was later called the “reign of Terror” and his disputed role in political trials and executions one year later. When France threatened to fall apart in the summer of 1793, the republic was severely centralized to become “one and indivisible”. In July he was appointed as a member of the powerful Committee of Public Safety being popular and well connected to the Paris Commune. He exerted his influence to suppress the Girondins to the right, the Hébertists to the left and the Dantonists to the middle. As part of his attempts to use extreme measures to control political activity in France, Robespierre moved against his former friends, the more moderate Danton, and Desmoulins, who were executed in April 1794. The Terror ended four months later with Robespierre’s arrest on 9 Thermidor and his execution, events that initiated a period known as the Thermidorian Reaction.

Sometimes the beheading is literal, sometimes (as for Favor’s eggs) metaphorical.

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