How do you like your eggs?

What might raise an eyebrow in the film's audience is not necessarily what we first thought. Our film has some pretty tough revelations about Hardy's. Many are hard to take but they do come from Jim Hardy himself and the enthusiasts are probably big enough for that.

Our film however does feature quite a lot of bamboo rod building, not all of this is by Hardy's. Much is by independent rod maker Edward Barder. Now then, driving moisture out of the bamboo is an important early stage of the rod building process. At Hardy's they have always done this by roasting their bamboo in ovens. Right back in the early days their shop in Fenkle Street in Alnwick was located next door to a bakers so that they could borrow their oven for that job.

Edward Barder tackles the moisture issue differently. He shuttles and spins his raw bamboo sections over an open gas flame. He does it like this so that he can see what is happening to the warming bamboo as well as hear it. As the moisture starts to mobilise and increase in temperature it hisses and steams. Edward compares the process to cooking an egg. You can do it with the shell on but then you can't see what is happening inside. I thought that seemed quite reasonable.

At Hardy's however the most important thing about this process was that it should allow moisture to be driven out at a consistent controlled rate. Baking or roasting the bamboo poles in an oven was the only way to do this. Sounds reasonable too.

To my surprise the contrary opinions raise a hackle or two. Which side of the fence your opinion falls on could count for a lot and we wouldn't want to alienate any potential viewers.

Personally though, I'm quite partial to a two egg omelette. A three egg omelette is such another beast and should be run out of town. And you know at the end of the day, "eggs is eggs".