When I was a kid, I didn’t really like eggs.  I thought they stunk. I thought they looked gross, and I never really cared for the consistency or texture.

If I ate them, I sort of choked them down and drank water quickly. But I rarely had to eat them and, to my knowledge, was never made to eat them.

We retrieved eggs from the chicken house a few times. I thought they were dirty and had trouble forgetting the time I saw some chicken doo on one of them.  

What a pansy I was.

Gradually, I learned to like certain types. I suppose deviled eggs were the first ones I may have liked. I liked the taste of the yellow part, but it was that slick, wet texture of the white part I wasn’t thrilled with.  

I started forcing myself to eat hard-boiled eggs with salt and pepper when I had the illusion I could get into reasonable shape.  

Still, that white part!

I was always fond of chocolate eggs. That’s a whole different story. I think my first memory of chocolate eggs are from my neighbor’s house, who would always have a candy dish full of the foil-wrapped eggs at their house around this time of year. 

There would be such eggs in our Easter baskets.  

My first exposure to chocolate in general was to the little white bag of chocolate stars my grandma used to buy at the dime store – still my all-time favorite, which often happens when I try something for the first time.

But those chocolate eggs were a close second.

I can remember one particular Easter when Mom hid plastic eggs all around the house. Me being an early riser back then, I went around and found all the eggs and also snooped in my Easter basket. Ever the criminal, I returned all the eggs to their proper place so that my perfect, innocent little brother would have an equal chance, and then I went back to bed and probably salivated at what I had seen in the Easter basket:  an entire carton of marshmallow chocolate eggs.

I was familiar with the marshmallow version somewhat, but only because I’d just had that tasty delight a few months back.  At that time, however, it was at a holiday party and the chocolate egg was in the form of you-know-who.

Still, marshmallow, chocolate.  Good eatin’.

Marshmallow eggs were my top Easter pick from then on, and I somehow managed to snag some every year after that, whether it was in my own Easter basket or someone else’s.

Are we at the age now where we bemoan the losses from our youth?

If so, then I bemoan chocolate eggs. Somehow, the chocolate doesn’t taste like it did back then. To me, it’s less sweet, a little on the plasticky side, and simply not as good as it once was.

I thought I had  once recaptured that taste when I treated myself to a dip cone at DQ, and the very wise worker handed my cone out to me. The chocolate the worker had dipped my cone in had not hardened yet, and the cone was just the right mix of ice cream and delicately cascading chocolate. I don’t know what happened to the dip stuff, but it never did harden, and I wolfed that cone down pretty fast, even with the threat of a dairy induced headache.

But that was the closest I’ve gotten to the chocolate eggs from the old days.

And now, we arrive at a touchy subject. This is one that scholars have most likely written about. Do Reese’s peanut butter eggs taste better than the cups, or indeed, any other variations of the candy?

Many, including me, say Reese’s eggs are the best.

I’ll go toe-to-toe with anyone and argue. I’ll be subjected to a taste test if needed, and I will be more than willing to be part of an ongoing study, tested frequently over time.

And would you believe it? You’d think after all those adjectives and suggestive verbiage, that I’d be craving chocolate eggs.  Or at least want to go to the nearest candy counter and get a little bag full of chocolate stars.

Nope. I’m wanting a deviled egg. I kid you not.

Taste buds are weird.