SC - eggs

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Mark Harris wrote:

> Do quail eggs really taste that much differnet from chicken eggs? If
> not, they sound like a lot more work.

As I put on my Devil's advocate hat: my experience has been that they
taste almost identical to hen's eggs. They are also somewhat more work,
since their size affects the surface-area:mass ratio, meaning more
square inches of shell per ounce of egg. So, six ounces of quail eggs
will have more shell to remove than six ounces of hen's eggs. That being
said, they do have a major advantage for the type of thing we use them
for: their appearance and size. This isn't something I would ever say
lightly, but they do have  major cute factor at work. Normally I don't
do cute food. I am more proud of a fine sauce than of any number of
subtleties I have made, so normally something like the cute factor of a
little egg wouldn't matter to me. But quail eggs are cool nonetheless. 

> For that matter, do eggs from
> chickens, geese, quail, ducks etc taste different, if they are all
> farm raised? I have heard that there is a differance between farm-
> raised and free-range chickens but I'm asking about just farm-raised
> eggs since that is likely to be all I'm going to be able to get.

Hen's eggs do, however, taste different from the eggs of ducks and
geese. Never tasted a turkey egg, so I wouldn't be able to address that
one, but duck and goose eggs, either just because they are different
birds from chickens, or perhaps because they are waterfowl, are much
richer than hen's eggs, with a slight tang of sulfur to the yolk, which
means it's a bad move to seriously overcook them, or to eat them when
they aren't fresh. Mrs. Beeton swears by them for custards,though, and a
couple of New York pastry chefs have been getting them in for that
purpose, as a matter of fact. See? You CAN learn something from old
cookbooks!  

Adamantius
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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