Ode to Yolks

As a kid, I never liked egg yolks.  I never liked their vague chalkiness, their cholesterol taste or the gray ring that enveloped them when they were hard-boiled.

I would only eat egg yolks if they were in scrambled eggs or omelets and doused with ketchup.  All hard-boiled yolks I would remove.  

Then I moved to Ireland, started shopping at the Co-op, and discovered the happiest eggs I have ever seen.  The yolks were the color of marigolds, and for the first time in my entire life, at the age of 25 I appreciated my first yolk.  It was rich and nourishing and for the first time, didn't taste vaguely... wrong.

Now we're in Ghana.  The hens don't generally feast on green pastures, but on what they can pick out of the rubbish heaps and scrubby grass patches at the side of the road.  Grassy front lawns are a rarity because they attract mosquitoes.  The local preference is to have a concrete yard in front of your house.  Maybe with some potted plants.

As you can imagine, egg yolks here were back to the pasty colors I was used to - and then even lighter on the spectrum.  Some yolks are hardly yellow at all!

But then I discovered that my physiotherapy clinic also ran a little shop, selling eggs with yolks as yellow as the African sunset.  I jumped right in!  

Some yolks were pretty average, but some were beautiful and orange.  That makes the whole pack worth it.  I can't get them all the time because I don't go to PT as often as we need eggs!  But I'm going again on Friday, and already looking forward to those creamy and delicious yolks.

Here's one now, with Roomie's feijao and rice.

(Separate post for that recipe will come.  Maybe.)