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How fresh do you need the eggs?

I do know the one place I want my eggs to be not so new is when I am boiling them. Those shells are horrible to get off if they are younger.

I'm with Ronnie and others, it's become difficult to order eggs out, unless it's some place that has the Farm named on the menu for eggs, because regular eggs continue to disappoint me. We just got some eggs from a chef friend over the weekend and I admit this vegetarian was not happy when she saw the box said vegetarian feed, but shockingly they looked & tasted like fresh eggs so I'm guessing the chicken-feed maybe vegetarian but they probably still scratch for bugs.

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Ava-"If you get down and out, just get in the kitchen and bake a cake."- Jean Strickland

Horto In Urbs- Falling in love with Urban Vegetable Gardening

What I recently learned is that if you steam eggs the shells come right off almost in a whole piece. I bought a dozen eggs at the supermarket,went straight home,followed the instructions at the link below and it was unbelievable how easy they were to peel.

Forget Hard Boiling Eggs – Steamed Eggs are Easy to Peel

Fascinating. Thanks. I usually keep an "old dozen" for boiling & use the new dozen for all other egg dishes.

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Ava-"If you get down and out, just get in the kitchen and bake a cake."- Jean Strickland

Horto In Urbs- Falling in love with Urban Vegetable Gardening

Blind taste test.
Stopped last Wednesday at my local farmer who raises eggs at his farm but not as part of any large commercial egg business. Go into small shed near the chicken coop with a couple of roosters and chickens running around in the cold. Large metal mesh container with a least 80 brown large eggs in it.
Pack 5 dozen for myself in cartons that are reused. Leave $10 in the mesh container.
Thursday stop at Woodman's and purchase one doz commercial eggs. Date code 45, sell by date, 3/14/12. So packaged on 2/14/12.
This AM, Saturday 2/25/12 conducted blind taste test for two people.
Eggs cooked in unsalted butter with no seasoning, sunny side up for one person and easy over lightly for the other person.
Results:
First Taster, easy over lightly, correctly identified the different eggs, preferred the farm egg, more taste, more flavorful.
Second Taster, sunny side up, incorrectly identified the farm egg, farm egg had a little more taste but only subjective. No preference.
Test performed only once, so no statistics.
Caveat, we have been eating these farm eggs for a number of years, so one would expect a possible bias.
Conclusion both eggs highly acceptable and the difference was not very much but both Testers reported that the farm eggs had slightly more taste..-Dick

I agree that yolk color and quality may be an indirect correlation but it’s usually one you can count on. It is diet related, and typically due to bugs. (I know people that prefer the farm eggs in the summer). The grains that produce the darker color must not be cost effective or they would be more widely used.

As for difference in quality it goes beyond taste for many. Are the chickens getting medicines on a preventative basis? How many square feet per bird do they have when indoors? How clean is the coop? Are they getting artificial light 24 hrs a day to increase production? Free range is also a loose term.

I find the farm eggs superior personally …even on taste alone. I’d imagine there are a lot of factors. I think perception in my case is not one of them.

"I think perception in my case is not one of them."

The phrase "perception is reality" is indeed true.
That is why blind testing is performed.
Even the individual performing the testing can give clues to the tester. That is why double blind tests are performed.
In this case it seems that a simple blind test is sufficient.
So, until you perform a blind test, I don't see how one can make the above statement which is why I do blind testing when possible.
As for the other various questions, I didn't have a tape measure when I stopped and the farmer was driving semi that day and other family members off to different day jobs which is how many small farms work these days. They are just raising chickens, ducks, turkeys and eggs as they have done for decades and as their Father, Grandfather in this case did before them. I know one farmer of about 85 whose family settled in Wisconsin in the 1840's and there is a large stone where the original Great Grandparents are buried commemorating the dates. This will be the first Summer he will only raise sweet corn, leaving the vegetable business behind. -Dick

I would guess the primary determinant of egg taste is the diet of the hens. Just a guess.

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i used to milk cows

They weren’t really questions for you, just meant to imply that many people consider a lot of factors beyond taste when assessing “quality”.

As for the scientific testing I fall short, however I have called home and complained about the eggs my wife has sent me to work with, and each time the answer was that they were from the store…and those were organic, free range. As standard commercial eggs it’s not even close and the blind taste test would be a formality.

Teatpuller, I think you're pretty much bang on: egg taste is pretty much dependent on hen diet. But like Dick said, only a double-blind test would reveal whether or not the Authentic Farm Hen's egg tasted better than (even) the 'organic, free-range' supermarket egg. [I suspect that it would, hands down, but suspicion's not enough...] I've been in the wine biz for a coon's age, and I know for a fact that unless a tasting is double-blind, cues to identity abound, and humans are sensitive enough to pick up the clues, flawlessly.

Hmmm, thinking a bit more about the determinants of taste, I wonder if exercise makes any difference? A genuine farm hen not only eats bugs and stones and other stuff, she runs about hither and yon, which makes a genuine difference in the taste+texture of her flesh. I wonder if it has anything effect on the taste qualities of her eggs? Interesting...

Geo

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Sooo, you like wine and are looking for something good to read? Maybe *this* will do the trick!

"blind taste test would be a formality"

If blind testing was a formality, you would have all kinds of drugs on the market with various claims that provide absolutely no intended affect and in many cases actually provide unwanted side effects.
Even with that prohibition provided by the FDA, the market for cures/vitamins whatever that is not Regulated is full of these products.
My suspicion is that even Supermarket free range organic eggs actually are not that much different than any other commercial egg in that the feeds are very similar and what exactly does free range mean. It would be instrumental to actually go to one of these suppliers and actually observe how the hens are kept.
But if factors beyond taste affect your judgement of 'quality', then this discussion is pointless because that is perception and not reality.-Dick