By Lorin Gaudin

Within the space of one week I had this strange experience of constantly bumping into chickens, things associated with chickens and eggs. The frequency of these run-ins was such that I began to see it as Karmic.

It began as I was driving my youngest son Remy to school. We turned onto a busy suburban street when a couple of chickens and roosters crossed in front of my car. Apart from screaming and performing Mario Andretti type moves to avoid hitting the birds, we were truly shocked. What were those guys doing in the city? My son thought it was “awesome,” but I simply couldn’t process the concept of “free range city chicks.”

The next day I picked up the Wednesday New York Times to read William Grimes’ column, which, on this date was about—you guessed it—a chicken. In case you are unaware, noted restaurant critic and city dweller, William Grimes had adopted an orphaned chicken. The lovely bird was residing under a tree in his yard, ate cat food or whatever she was fed and eventually produced delicious eggs. Like many, I loved this story and was impressed with the restaurant critic as animal lover. Then I realized that once again I was connecting to chickens and eggs.

The following Tuesday, I headed to my regular gig volunteering at the wonderful Crescent City Farmer’s Market. That day there was a new vendor, a guy selling his fresh yard eggs. As the folks of Mother Clucker’s Farm were setting up their table, I peered into the cartons and saw what could only be called a rainbow coalition of eggs—brown, white, green, blue, and mauve. Being the ultimate city chick myself, I asked, “How did the eggs got that color?”

The patient farmers Dan and Judy Chapetta told me that the eggs came from a breed of chicken called an Easter Egg Chicken (what else) that is genetically predisposed to laying eggs in varying shades of blue, green and pink. Dan and Judy are passionate about chickens and the eggs. They love their birds, name each one, and know an astounding amount of information about breeds, breeding and egg coloration. They also invited Remy and me to their farm for hands-on education. Here again was another chicken/egg connection.

A couple of days later Remy and I headed to Loranger, Louisiana, home of Mother Clucker’s Farm. Dan, a retired New Orleans fire fighter has always loved cage birds and is generally an animal lover. Upon retirement he and his wife decided to move to the country and take a chance at raising laying hens. At present he has a small but growing collection of heirloom chickens and roosters, as well as some unusual breeds of turkeys. Dan has big plans for breeding and cross breeding birds and is hard at work on breeding a hen that will lay a perfectly sized, one bite pickling egg, bigger than a quail, but smaller than a chicken. For my part, I was particularly interested in the chickens that lay those beautifully colored eggs. So while Remy warned the chickens it was “fly or pie” and got chased by an exceptionally mean rooster, Dan took me out to the coop for a lesson in Chicken 101.

True Araucanas are rump-less (no tail) and ear-tufted birds originally from South America. These birds were imported to the U.S. around 1930 and first successfully bred by Mr. Ward Brower Jr. Known for laying blue eggs, most of the so-called Araucanas in the U.S. are mixes that carry some of the original genes and lay variously colored eggs: blue, green, or pinkish. These birds are more commonly known as Easter Egg Chickens. They come in white and many other colors. The American Poultry Association also recognizes a bird called the Ameraucana, which lays colored eggs and has muffs and a beard, not ear tufts, and comes in standardized color varieties. All I can say is that there was one chicken that was a dead ringer for Keith Richards and Remy found a black and white bird with a full head of hair that he swears clucked “I’m with the band”.

Limited as I am in my chicken knowledge, I had no idea how many varieties of chicken are out there and how beautiful they can be. Chicken breeding is big business and quite a hobby as well. There are chicken preservationists who try to continue breeds of chickens that threaten to go the way of the Do-Do bird, and “eggcentrics” who try to cultivate chickens for the strange colors of eggs. My personal favorite is the website dedicated to buying all things chicken, Eggbay.com.

Speaking of eggs, there are those who swear that there is a definite distinction between store-bought and yard eggs.

Yard eggs, which come from free-ranging (running around outdoors) chickens, have a more colorful yolk due to the chicken getting green forage. But do they really taste better? Well I know a gauntlet when one is thrown at me so I bought a mixed dozen of green, blue, beige, and milk chocolate brown eggs along with a dozen of the regular grocery store variety. To make things as fair as possible I chose the freshest store-bought I could find (read much running around town). For this “eggsperience,” I got Remy involved. After taking one look at the colored eggs, Remy requested a plate of “green eggs and ham.” He also wanted to invite his cousin Sam for breakfast and asked if they could eat them in a box (please refer to Dr. Seuss).

I took out two pans and prepared two sets of fried eggs and ham.

Honestly, the yard eggs did taste better, actually fresher. They yolk was more yellow and yet the flavor was milder. In addition to Remy’s “eggsperiment,” I soft boiled a chocolate colored egg and a store-bought brown egg. Again the taste was fresher with a richer yolk that was almost creamy. As far as we’re concerned, the yard eggs are hands down winners for flavor. Admittedly yard eggs can be difficult to come by unless you raise chickens or have access to someone who does. Don’t be daunted, store bought are still delicious and let’s face it nothing beats a good egg.

The end of all this chicken business is that Dan gave Remy a young black laying hen as a pet. We carted her home, set up a coop and now “Liz” resides happily in our yard. Believe it or not chickens have a lot of personality. Liz comes when called and likes to shoulder perch for neck nuzzling. Liz’s middle name is Grimes in homage to William Grimes’ chicken that has recently gone missing. As we patiently wait for the day when Liz will produce eggs, we know that the chicken karmic circle is complete.

Filed Under: Food Talk