Eggs. Store-bought eggs. Free-range chickens on my friends’ farm eggs. What a difference in flavor. But wait, there’s more!-- more exotic eggs to enjoy in this world. Like, for example, guinea fowl eggs.
We have a flock of guinea fowl running (semi-)wild and free at the barn where I board my horse, currently numbering about 14. They go where they please – including into the grain room if someone forgets to shut the door – and eat bugs and other yummy natural stuff besides their game bird feed. (They also cause a ruckus when the overprotective daddy fowl decide to protect their precious mama fowl and baby keets from the big bad horses.) :eek:
But I digress, as is often my wont. Why, once when I was composing a post about alligators I found myself examining the role of the aspidistra in 19th century literature and
:o
Ahem. :smack:
Anyway, my point, such as it was, is that I raided a nest for some guinea fowl eggs and tried them. No, no, I assure you, the mother hen suffered no trauma from this rude abduction of potential offspring. Guinea fowl, after all, lay a good couple dozen eggs per brood. Why, we once found a nest where (we fervently hoped it was) two different hens combined their maternal production into a 40+ egg clutch.
So. To me, the true test of egg flavor is hard-boiled, eaten unsalted. Egg and nothing but egg. The nascent keetery, I must say, have very hard, dense shells – far more resistant to breaching than chicken eggs. When one finally does smash one’s way in, an unfortunate amount of white peels away with the shell. Nonetheless, I can report that what’s left to devour is delicious – a bit more assertive than hen eggs, but not unduly gamy, and the little yolk in its little envelope of white is rich in both color and flavor.
Today I ventured into another dimension of eggsellence – into the World of the Duck. A friend has a mixed flock of several French mallards, some larger, white Pekins, and a few Indian runners – truly bizarre critters. They roam free in her yard, splash about in the pool she’s made for them, and generally enjoy life immensely. Now that it’s spring, they’re also laying like crazy and she’s happy, indeed pathetically eager to share the bounty. So I took a dozen assorted eggs home to try.
To give you an idea of size, here is an illustration of several different fowl’s production. Notice the lovely pale blue-green color of the mallard egg. It’s about chicken-sized. The Pekin duck egg, though, is huge. Nevertheless, duck eggs hard-boil just as nicely as chicken eggs.
So… duly cooked, cooled, and now to be eaten. I chose a Pekin egg to try. The shell was much more chickenlike than a guinea fowl’s in hardness and thickness, and peeled away easily. The yolk is IMMENSE! There’s a far higher yolk-to-white ratio in a duck’s egg compared to a hen’s. It’s also a deep vibrant yellow.
And how was it? YUM. No, let me make that YUM!!! Rich egg flavor in the velvet-smooth yolk. Quite possibly the best egg I’ve ever eaten. 
Now, if I could just find someone with some goose eggs for me to try…
