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Eating Local, Eating Green: Pay a little extra for farm-fresh eggs

By Melissa Petersen

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

In the world of cooking, eggs are a big deal. In my world, without eggs, I might starve.

I generally stick to five or six “go-to” recipes, not including baking. But culinary tradition holds that the folds in a chef’s toque represent the number of ways the wearer can successfully cook eggs — up to 101 pleats.

Escoffier’s “Le Guide Culinaire” boasts 202 egg recipes and another 78-plus for omelets. I can’t begin to count the salads, sauces, custards and hors d’oeuvres that depend on eggs for success.

A little powerhouse of protein, chicken eggs are the norm here, though you can occasionally find local duck, goose or quail eggs. With the popularity of backyard chickens, procuring local eggs could be even easier than finding local vegetables.

Available year-round at farmers markets, at groceries and from your foodie neighbors, truly farm-fresh eggs don’t taste anything like the commercially produced equivalent. An egg from a chicken that has been allowed to roam — eating bugs, grass, vegetables and grains — is just going to have more flavor than an egg from a chicken crammed into a cage and fed a sack of “feed.”

Don’t take my word for it. Spring for the $4-a-dozen eggs at the farmers market, and taste them side by side with the $3-a-dozen kind from a grocery. Cook them up side by side. Be gentle with the heat. Taste. Be truthful. You can taste the difference, can’t you?

Is it worth it to pay a little more for an egg that tastes better…… Click here to finish this article.