Eatin’ Me Some Emu

NYE 2009 took me to the West Coast, where a couple of friends, my other half and I rented a cute little house in the Santa Ynez Valley near the Danish village of Solvang, which is famous for its wine, windmills, rolling mountains and the awful movie Sideways.

I could write about how beautiful the scenery was and how amazing the wines we tasted were but that really isn’t interesting compared to the amazing find I discovered — Ostrichland USA. In between Solvang and Buellton in the Santa Ynez Valley, this place is easy to miss, but well worth seeking out if only to gawk at the horrendously ugly and aggressive creatures that are the ostrich and emu, certainly a photo moment. But feeding these beasts and photo opportunities is not all this place has to offer…the foodie in me kicked in the moment I saw these monsters. I hit the brakes, turned the car around and said, “I want to eat that.”

There it was, the huge, gleaming green emu egg you see above, going for the price of $30 each.

The egg came with a set of instructions on how to crack it open: “Gather together a hammer, Phillips head screwdriver, a flexible straw, a large mixing bowl and a coffee cup…” Fucking amazing. The instructions are an intended guide on how to open the egg without destroying the shell so you can keep it as a souvenir. Of course I wanted none of that. I’m not funneling this thing through a tiny hole only to destroy the glory that is the yolk — which I was told can feed up to 12 people. As you can see from this video it took some effort to crack this sucker open.

I was on breakfast duty the following day so it only seemed normal for me to make a scrambled “egg”  from this. I can’t imagine frying it since I wouldn’t have a pan large enough, and I was told by the person who sold me the egg that it would take at least 30 minutes to boil— too long—although it did take a good 15 minutes to scramble.

The egg itself was extremely gooey in texture, both pre- and post- scrambled, and the flavour was lacking anything that resembled a chicken egg. To be honest, the fun of finding and opening the egg far exceeded eating it. Perhaps next time I’ll go for the ostrich.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, I did get to eat some emu, dinner at The Hitching Post II fixed that, although their birds were imported in from Australia, not sure why they weren’t fresh from down the road, but either way it was a damn tasty piece of meat.