Years ago, I raised a few chickens for eggs, and they were the best eggs I've ever eaten in my life.
The hens wandered around our farmyard eating bugs and scratching seeds. They drank clean, fresh running water from a spring a few yards from the coop. The spring ran on between the barn and an untended orchard where the dropped apples supplied a feast of protein in the form of worms and other crawly critters for the hens. They followed our cow from flop to flop, thriving on a similar diet.
The later might seem a little gross to a non-farmer. It did to me to at the time, but the first time I cracked one of those eggs into a frying pan with melted home churned butter I became a believer.
Part of my training at the Culinary Institute of America taught me how to recognize a wholesome fresh egg. A fresh egg, I was told, has a bright yellow or orange yolk. The white should be clear and thick and firm. The white is in two sections — the first thicker than the second. It surrounds and protects the yolk from breaking. The second is a little thinner and spreads a little more in the pan. If the outer layer is watery or the inner layer not thick enough to hold the yolk high and rounded and unbroken in the pan we were told the egg is not fresh.
The eggs from our little farm were magnificent. The yolks were so orange they were almost green with chlorophyll from the fresh greens the birds ate regularly. The whites were crystal clear and so thick they barely spread in the pan. The flavor was nearly indescribable. Imagine an egg with terroir, a term used to describe wine and specialty foods, which loosely translates to "a sense of place." Terroir is more than the sum of everything that goes into making something unique and wonderful. Our Clarey Hill eggs tasted of fresh grass and spring water and sunshine and rich fresh protein, even it was bug protein.
I missed those eggs when I left that farm. They were absent from my life for so long that I nearly forgot them. Then the organic food movement caught on and better eggs became more readily available. First they showed up in up-scale organic food stores. Then, fresher so called "free range eggs" became available in regular supermarkets, but by then commercial organic food advocates had watered down the definitions of both organic and free range to mean that the chickens raised in pens where they seldom if ever see the light of day and fed commercial, bagged feed were certified as organic.
To be certified as a free-range chicken each coop is required to have a number of small doors in it which are opened for a short period of time each day so the chickens can go outside if "they care to." Chickens are timid creatures. Usually when the doors open the hens huddle as far away as possible and go nowhere near it.
Eggs from "organic free range chickens" are better than commercial eggs were a decade ago, but now, as the growing "Eat Local" movement evolves, a whole new category of fresh wholesome eggs is available.
Buy your eggs at farmers markets if you can. Look for small local growers. If you can find the farmer with a couple of dozen layers running free in the yard buy those eggs. Ask questions. Discover whether the chickens are caged or pastured. All chickens spend some time in the coop to protect them from predators and make egg gathering practical. However, some small farms now rotate both meat and laying chickens about in pastures, containing them with portable fences. Look for eggs produced this way.
There are times when the simplest fare is the best, the most fondly remembered. Fresh, organic, small local farm raised eggs are one of those foods. It's a long way from Clarey Hill, Maine, to the sidewalk cafés of Paris. Last spring I was fortunate enough to enjoy one of the simplest and best omelets I've ever tasted in just such a place.
April in Paris isn't always what it's cracked up to be in old songs. Our few days in the city were bone-aching cold and wet. We stopped for lunch, and of course, the mandatory people watching, at a sidewalk café heated with those surprisingly efficient overhead propane heaters used just for that purpose. I ordered "Omelette avec Fines Herbs".
I knew immediately, just by the omelette's color, the dish was made with farm fresh eggs. They were rolled tightly around chopped parsley, and maybe a little chervil or the new spring sprouts of summery savory. That and a bottle of dry Rose', a crisp warm roll and espresso was probably one of the most memorable lunches of my life.
Paris, and even Down East Maine, are a ways from Cape Ann. But there are good farmers' markets much closer, and they may have eggs that are every bit as memorable.
Enjoy.
¢¢¢
Jack Felber is a regular Times columnist. He and his wife, Marcia Felber, are proprietors of the Olympia Tea Room, a Wine Spectator-recognized harborside restaurant in Watch Hill, R.I.
ShowBiz Minute: Madonna, Beresford-Redman, Pawsc
Stars Show Support at AMFAR Charity Gala
BCBG Kicks Off NY Fashion Week
The Muppets Are Oscars Bound!
ShowBiz Minute: House, Perry/Brand, Grammys
Hearts Are Pumping for the Ladies in Red
Androgynous Model Walks Runway As Man and Woman
ShowBiz Minute: Super Bowl, Taylor, Adele
Dench: 'I'm Not Going to Retire.'
No 'Safe House' With Ryan Reynolds Around
Stars Come Out at the Oscars Luncheon
David Guetta, Avicii Talk Grammy Nominations
Rapper J. Cole Is Ready for the Grammys
Chris Brown, More R&B Performers Look to Rapping
ShowBiz Minute: Chris Brown, Jay-Z, Oscar Lunche
Love in the Air at 'The Vow' Premiere
Daniel Radcliffe Haunted by the 'Woman in Black'
ShowBiz Minute: M.I.A., Washington, Box Office
Video of M.I.A's Obscene Halftime Gesture
M.I.A. Flips Bird at Super Bowl Halftime Show
