I Need the Eggs
Sunday, October 8, 2006 22:03
– Marco Pierre White
For the past three months or so, I have been searching all over the area for the eggs you only read about in books. You know, the ones with thick shells that stand an inch tall on a plate when cracked, the yolk brimming with a bright orange hue so iridescent it makes you scratch your head in awe.
Unfortunately, they remain elusive. Pictured above are the two closest specimens I have been able to find: from a friend’s true free-range hens (left) and Lily’s ‘free range’ eggs from the Hollywood farmer’s market (right). Even in this small comparison you can see the difference between them; the ones on the left are more richly-colored and plump, while the ones on the right are paler and more petite.
So why all this fuss over eggs? Some would probably call it an obsession, or that an egg is an egg is an egg. I just want to know where they come from.
As an avid home cook and baker, I use a lot of eggs. It goes in my pastas, sauces, pie crusts, custards, and souffles. However, like most other Angeleno foodies, I am also concerned about the environment in which the eggs are laid. What are the hens fed? How old are they? Do they roam around the fields freely, or do they merely have ‘access’ to the outside? All these factors directly affect the quality of the egg, from its size and shape to its color and behavior when being cooked. The details of this association are pretty well-documented in books like Edward Behr’s The Artful Eater and Joel Salatin’s myriad books on pastured farming, so I won’t go much further into the details. Suffice it to say, a good egg comes from a hen with a healthy, balanced diet and lots of room to exercise.
In the kitchen, I’ve found that with the better eggs, you don’t need as many to get the job done. Take, for instance, a custard — egg yolks, sugar, vanilla, and cream — where eggs are the sole thickening agent: if a recipe calls for six yolks, I’ll usually only need four of my best eggs to get the same texture as a custard I would make with other eggs. This, in many cases, justifies the added cost, as the price premium for ethical peace of mind turns out not to be so steep.
Take it up a notch, using as many eggs as the recipe calls for, and my egg white-only souffles never fall — even if I hit them with a spoon.
Still, I am on the hunt for those fleeting eggs of legend. Does anybody know of a good farmer in the area? Here’s a list of what I’ve found commercially so far, my favorites listed first:
- Lily’s Eggs, $4.50/dozen. Raised in Santa Barbara County, sold at the Hollywood farmer’s market, and marketed as ‘true’ free range eggs. Usually packed the day before market. Small, but nice, dense, and richly yellow. Grade AA.
- Eggs at the South Pasadena farmer’s market, $2.50/dozen. Raised in Riverside and marketed as free range. Large, generally firm and yellow, but a bit inconsistent in quality. Still, a good bang for your buck. Grade A.
- Mike & Sons Eggs, $2.50+/dozen. Raised in Ontario and sold at the Pasadena Victory Park farmer’s market. They are grain-fed and not marketed as free range, but they are large and fresh. Yolks are a bit on the small side. Grade AA.
- Trader Joe’s Organic Jumbo Free Range Eggs, $3.29/dozen. Origin unknown. Although these are marked as jumbo eggs, they are mostly whites, with the yolks about the same size as the ones found in Lily’s Eggs. Also, the yolks look about the same color as those found in Mike & Sons eggs. Grade A.
As for my friend’s eggs, I can’t disclose where they are raised, but the girls eat what they want and have unlimited freedom to roam. If I could get these all the time, I would.
sneakypeteiii is a doctoral student in Chemistry at Caltech. He has been eating since he was a child, and reckons himself quite good at it. (see more of his posts).
T.Vivante says:
October 9th, 2006 at 5:00 am
Since most of the locations to point out are Pasadena-y, have you tried Path to Freedom? Small family homestead just north of the 210 by the Arroyo. The summer was brutal on their egg laying, but they do have laying ducks and chickens. I’m looking forward to trying the duck eggs in my baking. Their product availability isn’t constant. But you can sign up for an e-mail newlestter that tells you when eggs are available for sale. They ask that you bring an egg carton as they prefer to recycle as much as possible.
http://www.pathtofreedom.com
sneakypeteiii says:
October 9th, 2006 at 8:02 am
Thanks T.Vivante! I am actually already on their mailing list, though I have not received anything regarding eggs yet. I imagine they are pretty good, however scarce. The search continues…
Oh yeah, the address is http://www.pathtofreedom.com — .org takes you to a Christian site of some sort :)
T. Vivante says:
October 9th, 2006 at 8:17 am
Oh eep!:) Sorry about the URL mix up. They’ve been plugging at the “institute” stuff for so long that I automatically plopped .org in there.
I was going to suggest visiting backyardchickens.com and posting a request, but sadly I dicovered the message boards were dead:(.
Another option is localharvest.org (I checked that one:)) It’s where I first found a local duck egg vendor and reviewed some CSAs. Their database takes a little tweaking and searching, but it’s a good way to find alternative sources for foodstuffs.
T. Vivante says:
October 9th, 2006 at 8:25 am
Found it. The Backyard Chickens forum moved over to EZboard: http://p072.ezboard.com/bbackyardchickens
Very active community. Probablyt he best way to find a local flock that meets your requirements.
Jonah says:
October 9th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
We go through a ridiculous amount of eggs in our house for the same reasons you mentioned SPIII. Most of the time we just use the Trader Joe’s eggs or the VegeFed eggs from Whole Foods because they are cheap.
I have heard opinions that the extra large and jumbo eggs are not as good as medium sizes. I don’t know why and I don’t really have an opinion either way myself, I will do some more digging.
here is a whole egg-load of info about egg quality
sneakypeteiii says:
October 9th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
Thanks for the links, TV. I am looking for a more accessible solution as well, however, because we shouldn’t need to go looking so hard to find eggs/meat from well-treated animals; they should be more visible to the average consumer.
Jonah, I’m puzzled by the XL/jumbo assertion, too. Keep us posted.
MaxMillion says:
October 10th, 2006 at 10:18 am
I have bought Lily’s eggs, and while they seem high quality, the ones you pick up at the markets are much smaller than the (more expensive) ones you find in the supermarket. That is to be expected; people tend to sell their best produce to the stores.
So I generally buy the aforementioned TJ’s so-called ‘Jumbo’ ones. The main reason I prefer decent sized eggs is that most cake recipes call for a 61 gram egg. Most eggs in the store are pitifully small — often only 55 grams or less.
The thing is, you can’t easily double up on eggs to compensate for their tiny size/volume. I suppose I could add an additional albumen, but I despise waste (the leftover yolk) and I’m not that crazy about cooking things with yolks (eg hollandaise sauce, zabaglione etc).
The main (and somewhat obvious) point about jumbo vs medium eggs mentioned in that link Jonah provided is that there is more inedible shell contributing to the weight of a small egg than its bigger brothers and sisters. Stands to reason! No mention of size affecting quality that I could see.
sneakypeteiii says:
October 10th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Hm…Lily’s average 58 g with the shell, and the larger ones (2-4) are about 68 g. What matters for baking, really, is the amount of protein and the amount of lecithin, right? Fat is immaterial.
So, with a good egg (that has a high protein density, i.e. it “stands” on a plate) you can go smaller and add a bit of water to lighten it back up. Still, more eggs = richer cake, health be damned.
The last three work on the egg-to-etto pasta recipe with a spritz of water from my spray bottle, though I have to admit the Lily’s is small enough to change the recipe.
Angeleyes says:
October 11th, 2006 at 8:38 am
My mom’s hens lay those rich colour egg yolks and too bad she stays too far from you…:P
But I can share on what she fed to these ladies… no other than corns and wheats and with plenty of roaming around…sometimes mom will feed them wholemeal bread too.
Phil Westwood says:
December 9th, 2006 at 11:40 pm
It’s always hard finding genuine free range eggs because there is no real legal definition. We are working on it her in Australia and I reckon we are pretty close to getting a national definition which will mean the same to consumers as it does to producers. We operate a small free range farm with around 800 hens and we sell mostly through farmers as well as home deliveries and some sales in small stores. No-one will ever find our eggs in a supermarket!
Please have a look at our website ti see how we run the farm.