Hobo eggs are sunny-side eggs fried in buttered bread with a hole cut out. The recipe was first written in 1896 in Fannie Farmer's "The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook."
Farmer dubbed the dish "eggs in a hat." The "hat" was a previously fried egg perched atop the cut-out bread rather than cooked inside its precise two-and-a-half-inch circle.
The dish has had at least 66 names, and movies have influenced the names greatly. However, it’s unclear where exactly the controversial name "hobo eggs" came from.
Today, "hobo" is a derogatory term for a homeless person, but in the 19th century, it referred to a free spirit who traveled from train stop to train stop to seek out work.
On their travels, food was often scarce, and the hobos often cobbled together a meal and cooked it over a fire. This is likely why the dish became "hobo eggs."