After a hellish plane ride, I arrived at my aunt and uncle’s house utterly exhausted AND starving. Fortunately, my uncle came to the rescue by whipping up a meal of eggy potatoes and Marmite toast (all you Marmite haters out there, I don’t want to hear it. I could eat happily that stuff with a spoon. Yes, I know you think it tastes like rancid anchovy butts. No, I will not stop eating it).
When he opened up the box of eggs, I noticed that they all had blue shells. In America, they’d come from Auracana chickens, but here they were from Cotswold Legbars. Expecting them to be the same as Auracana eggs, I wasn’t paying much attention when my uncle cracked the eggs open. When, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the yolks were BRIGHT ORANGE, I let out an almighty yell.
See? Orange! The pictures don't really do it justice, though...
“What?” said my uncle in an all-too-innocent tone. “Aren’t your egg yolks orange too?” knowing full well that orange yolks aren’t standard issue in America OR England.
The orange doesn't really show up here, so you'll have to take my word for it - I'd added rather a lot of creme fraiche to the eggs before I scrambled them...
When the egg and potato omelet was done cooking, it was orange rather than the standard yellow that I’m used to. I was tickled pink to be eating something so familiar and yet so utterly different. Despite the fact that I was at my uncle’s house for nearly a week, the novelty didn’t wear off. I ate many, many eggs during that time.
In America, you probably wouldn’t be able to find this type of egg at your average supermarket – in fact, you’d have to go to Whole Foods and spend a bunch of money for a half dozen Auracana eggs. Here, you can get them in many of the large grocery stores. That’s not to say that our grocery system is any better or worse (I actually had to think about whether I meant England or America when I said “our” – it’s America…for now), but merely an interesting observation.
