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| Angelika/Mike Schilli |
NEW NEW NEW: San Francisco Urban Hikes Collection
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Michael Americans only know about fried eggs for breakfast, it's not widely known to simply scoop egg yolk out a soft-boiled egg directly from the shell. One of the reasons for that is that the major U.S. chicken farms have been struggling for decades with salmonella bacteria contamination, to the point where they've actually given up on battling it. That's why Americans get nervous immediately when they eye chicken products not cooked to the point where no live organism could potentially have survived.
If they find even a tiny bit of chicken meat that's slightly undercooked, American consumers switch immediately to Defcon 5 and throw it all out. Supermarkets in the U.S. sell eggs off refrigerated displays, whereas in Germany they're they're sitting on regular shelves. Fried eggs are often ordered "over easy", with the yoke already semi solid. Real sunny side up eggs are often eyed with suspicion and only the very brave consume dishes requiring raw eggs, like the Italian dessert "Tiramisu".
I don't know if we have extraordinarily resilient stomachs or were lucky enough to never be exposed to a virus, but we've never had any issues with undercooked eggs although we enjoy all kinds of food containing them. And we love Tiramisu of course! But what is definitely noticable is the egg quality if breakfast eggs are boiled in the shell as opposed to frying them in the pan. Organic eggs from the Aldi-owned chain store Trader Joes, for example, occasionally taste like someone has left open the door to the pig sty. If you, like me, have spent time as a kid on rural farms, you know what I'm talking about. The taste varies by season, too, every once in a while I've gotten a batch of pretty good tasting eggs from Trader Joes as well.
I've recently discovered that "Whole Foods", the organic hipster market around the corner, carries a selection of eggs from free range hens at an exorbitant price, but they consistently meet my expectations. At about 5 Dollars per half-dozen, they cost about three times as much as other alleged organic products, but since we only eat eggs for breakfast maybe twice a week, so price isn't the driving factor here. The half-dozen "Rainbow" egg pack (as far as I know they're not related to the great "Rainbow Groceries" market) also represents typical San Francisco diversity: All eggs are slightly different in color, some of them even have a greenish hue, but as far as I know, the Easter Bunny had nothing to do with it.
Speaking of "Rainbow Groceries": Recently, I've found equally expensive eggs there. The dozen went for $9.75 and I thought, life is short, let's do it! They tasted really good. Also, it's a good idea to support Rainbow Groceries. Apparently, the rampant commercial success of the Whole Foods chain is eating into their revenue, and I'd rather see them survive here in the city until and beyond the day I retire. They're the real deal, on their parking lot you see authentic hippies still driving up in their 30-year-old Volvos, while at Whole Foods there's always the same lame Google nerds and their Yoga girls.
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