At the beginning of the story, Peter T. Hooper brags to a girl, Liz, in his mother's kitchen about how good of a cook he is. He tells the story of how, when he became fed up with the taste of regular scrambled eggs using hen's eggs, he decided to scramble eggs from other birds. He tells of how he travelled great distances and discovered a variety of exotic birds and their eggs. He explains his criteria for choosing some eggs, because of their sweetness, and avoiding others. He takes the eggs home but decides that he still needs more, and he calls on the help of some friends he knows from around the world, including a "fellow named Ali".