Ostrich Egg

A new Whole Foods store opened right near my work. Whole Foods is an overpriced, somewhat organic supermarket, with a somewhat-premium selection. The problem with normal supermarkets is that they sell a mind-numbing variety of food that ranges from unhealthy to the point of poisonous, to very untasty at low, low prices. Whole Foods sells decent, and sometimes even healthy and delicious food, but at a budget breaking prices. They also sometimes have exotic products, and because of that provide me with material for Gastronomic Adventures.

Today on the menu: ostrich egg. It cost me $29, and apparently it was a pricing mistake – it now cost $39. Even though they are big, they are fricking expensive. Notice the “local” tag. Eating local food is all the rage these days thanks to The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and apparently there’s an ostrich farm somewhere in New York.

As tempting as the microwave experiment looked, and as high as the novelty value of the Scotch ostrich egg is, I decided on a more conventional recipe.

After taking a hammer to the egg, I fried some up and baked the rest.

While the taste was similar to chicken eggs,

the texture was completely different. The fried egg white felt stringy, almost like noodles, and very, very tasty.

The baked yolk was creamy and without that sulfury taste that chicken egg yolks sometimes have. The whole thing was very tasty. If not for the price, I’d be eating ostrich eggs much more frequently.

The British Poultry Authority

One of my numerous heroes, David Cutler, among other things in his office at Digital, had a sign supposedly from “The British Poultry Authority” which asked “Is Your Cock Plump Enough?”. I’ve read about it in one of my favorite books about Microsoft – “Showstopper“.

That kind of reminded me about a story somebody told me about a tour guide in Riga, who could not understand why all the American tourists laughed when she said something about “a cock on the spire”. In the Soviet Union everybody learned British English.

A couple of food packages from my recent trip to the supermarket: