The Internet Can't Get Enough Of This Chef's Bizarre Egg Cracking Tutorial

Marco Pierre White doesn't want to be called a celebrity chef, although he does take credit for having created one. In his memoir, The Devil in the Kitchen, he takes credit for both making and breaking celebrity chef, Gordon Ramsay (via Independent). And Ramsay has basically admitted as much, even while registering his utter disdain for his former mentor, White. Yet somehow, the "not-a-celebrity" chef who appears to enjoy being known for his anti-foodie-establishment antics, such as turning down Michelin stars his restaurants have earned (via Eater), has managed to all but break the internet with a bizarre egg-cracking "tutorial."

White quietly (if you can characterize posting to his 208,000 followers as "quietly") posted the wordless two-and-a-half-minute tutorial to Instagram on February 21, 2021, along with the words, "How to crack an egg," followed by an egg emoji (via Instagram). In the three days that have followed, the video has received about 75,000 views and umpteen comments. So what makes this chef's bizarre egg-cracking tutorial so fascinating that the internet can't seem to get enough?

A self-appointed "classicist," Marco Pierre White told Wanted in 2017 that he's not one to "reinvent the wheel." Apparently White decided to drive that point home on February 21, with his bizarre Instagram egg-cracking tutorial. As we begin, White sits before a paper crate of brown eggs, a large glass bowl, and a white dinner plate. Wearing a cozy fisherman's sweater, White rests his face on one hand, looking either existentially bored or blissfully relaxed, depending on which Instagrammer's comments you happen to be reading. He then rolls up his sleeves and slowly and methodically cracks an egg against the tabletop and raises the shells high to release their contents into the bowl. He then places the eggshell on the plate beside him, one half atop the other.  

As we await explanation — or even any words at all — White repeats the process until he decides the tutorial is over, and we're left staring at a stack of eggshells, perched on a plate beside a bowl containing the eggs. Perhaps White's message is utterly transparent — that this is the only proper way to crack an egg, regardless of what the TikTok generation would have us believe. 

White's fans offer their own fascinating theories. "Real chefs crack eggs on eggs," one Instagrammer commented. "These are a series of post modern performance art pieces on the inertia of global lockdown," another commenter joked. Bottom line? No one can seem to stop thinking about it.