I am the Egg Man

Since I had a plane to catch on Sunday, we ended up staying in Alexandria for the weekend.  Since we couldn't get out to enjoy some local produce from our friends out in Page County, we trucked it down to Whole Foods (or Whole Paychecks, call it as you may) for some things to cook.

Well, I thought I would put in some volunteer activity on behalf of all the neighbors out there who are raising backyard poultry and collected a little market research on what those eggs your hens are brooding on will fetch here in town.

Here is a bunch of conventionally grown chicken eggs, as the first case study, which are being sold for fifty cents each.  That's $6 a dozen, home gamers.

Next we have duck eggs.  They get a lot of face time these days because of the rich variation the duck diet naturally contains - at least it has more variation than a conventionally grown chicken, of that I am sure.

These would make a great omelette...and they are priced at 75 cents a pop.

Finally, the novelty.  Many folks know that Whole Foods sells ostrich and emu eggs, as shown here.  The price of one of these exotic eggs is $29.95. 

Like so many (including the author of this blog post:  http://www.tamaraduker.com/2009/07/how-many-people-does-an-ostrich-egg-omelet-feed/ as it turns out), I've often wondered about the substitution of one of these ginormous eggs in a recipe for regular chicken eggs.  Turns out one ostrich egg will substitute for two dozen chicken eggs.

Doing the math, that is $15 per (chicken egg equivalent) dozen.

Now, as for the emu egg, well they have that beautiful color, and they have a rough texture.  That all makes them very interesting.    And as for the little Google search exercise I've done here - that tells me that both the ostrich and emu eggs are reliable substitutes for chicken eggs...

By the way, here is a link to a frittata recipe made with an emu egg...

http://windattack.com/recipe/emu-egg-frittata-caprese/

They're telling me that the emu egg is roughly equivalent to a dozen chicken eggs.  So in the pricing department, you're getting $30 per dozen with these.  There is some economic analysis and price theory work that could be done here - a female emu lays three eggs per year, so if you're thinking of an exotic egg venture, that data point will help.

Well, let's close out this little adventure with the note that we didn't buy any eggs.  We know a place where you can get some farm fresh, pasture raised chicken eggs.  Cheaper than this.