What came first, the chicken or the egg? The egg I think. Its smooth curves and cool shell just look like the perfect blank spot from which a beginning can get its start on. Plus, they’re delicious.
As egg lovers, a few years ago, my husband and I decided to maximize some of the space we had at our rural Yakima Valley home and try our hand at having a few chickens around. Being total novices to the whole process, we figured all we needed was an enclosed space with outdoor access. Check and check. Stopping by a feed store in the spring, my husband picked up two ducklings and four chicks. What kind? He wasn’t sure—the laying kind. We made sure they were warm and had the appropriate type of food and water, and watched them grow.
A few months later, sometime that summer, eggs started to appear: light brown eggs from the chickens, a mottled off-white from the ducks. Every once in a while they’re speckled, which pleases me to no end at the mere sight. Sometimes they’re still warm when I crack them in the pan. Truly fresh is hard to beat; fuller flavor, terrifically convenient, and about as whole of a food as there is.
It seems that in recent years, there has been a resurgence of the egg in popular culture. Not content to shrink away quietly after breakfast anymore, eggs can be found past noon on all kinds of eats, from pizza to polenta. Protein packed and tasty, there is a large cluster of food lovers in the world that will eat just about anything if you crack an egg on it. We three rooted gals are firmly in that camp. With spring fast upon us and the baby chicks starting to make their way into the market place for the season, we’d been thinking of the egg-bounty of the ever-giving hen, and what a simple way that is to connect with our food.
With sunny side up on the brain, we decided to visit our friend Stephanie Ketcham (the bona fide superwoman who provided the pumpkin for our soup in January) to see her chicken set up. Of course, she takes her’s to the next level. On a hillside in East Valley we check out her brood in a henhouse custom built by her husband. Doors hinge up to reveal laying boxes for easy egg access.
A small ramp lets them inside and out. She has their outdoor space set up over her garden boxes to eat up all they want of what’s left in the ground and scratch their own fertilizer into the dirt. They escape into the sagebrush while we’re looking around. She handles them easily; holding them upside down by the feet to calm them, then nuzzles them into our arms where they coo contently while we chat. Steph gives Shelley a take home of eggs and the wide-eyed smile she gets in return says it all.
We get back to Shelley’s house and she’s excited to have a fridge vs. fresh egg tasting. The fresh egg looks a bit more viscous and has a brighter yolk, almost orange, making the sunshine yellow of the store-bought egg seem pale and anemic by comparison. And the flavor is so much more richly complex and creamy in the fresh egg. It’s difficult to describe the taste of an egg. Fresh eggs are just, well, eggier.
As for my flock, four years later we’re down to one chicken and the two ducks, but they’re all still producing, although it has definitely slowed, and the ebb and flow to their laying is more pronounced. I think maybe it’s time to hit the feed store again for some spring chicks. I just can’t imagine life without fresh eggs.
*If you live in town and have a yard, you can still have fresh eggs. Most of the city ordinances that I could find stipulate that you can have up to 4-5 chickens but no roosters. Check your individual city rules to be sure.
Great article!!! Hoping in the next year or two to have our own chickies… You’ve inspired me!
Enjoyed your obvious enthusiasm for eggs! BTW, is there a difference in the taste between a duck egg and a chicken egg?
Mostly its the texture–the duck eggs are more viscous, like the proteins are “tighter” so they don’t lay as flat. Yolks are bright orange and larger, but still delicious! I love to use them for baking or for frittatas or anything that I can mix them into:)