FoodShed: Magic Eggs

I know I drank the “Kool Aid,” so to speak, on this local stuff. Add organics to the mix and I’m gone, hook, line and sinker. But the truth comes from the mouths of babes, I tell ya’. So I wanted to share what happened recently when I bought eggs from a local, certified organic farmer. I had some children over to my house and I asked them to crack these eggs for a quiche I was making. The children were all experienced egg-crackers. They picked up their eggs and started tapping them gently on the edge of the bowl. Not one cracked. They tapped harder. Still no cracks. They looked at me as if this was a trick but I urged them to tap even harder.

And then it happened. The eggs cracked and I heard a collective "wow!" The whites of the eggs were so thick they barely fell out of the shells. And the yolks! Forget yellow--these things were orange.

“I’ve never seen eggs like this!” one girl exclaimed. “These are magic eggs!”

I have to believe they are. There’s scientific evidence about higher amount of omega-3s, vitamins E and A, lower fat and cholesterol and all that, but I’m not going to go into that here. All I know is that the chickens that laid these eggs live like chickens are supposed to live. Scavenging around for grubs and worms and weeds. Scratching in the dirt. Getting fresh air. And these eggs are different from the high-priced cage-free, vegetarian feed ones I buy in the supermarket. The local farmer’s pastured chicken egg has a thicker, more gelatinous albumen and the yolk is a deeper color—saffron, or calendula, or marigold, or the gorgeous color of butternut squash when you cut it open on the kitchen counter in the long, late-afternoon shadows of fall.  

Magic eggs. It wasn’t so long ago that these were the only eggs children saw. Buy eggs from a local farmer and bring back some magic.