While egg whites were the heroes of the early aughts, healthy fats have become the talk of the town. Now that yolks seem to be permissible in a healthy diet, egg yolks have reached next level in a spectrum of color from mellow yellow to electric orange. Writer Marian Bull ponders why "Orange Is the New Yolk" in a recent story for Eater.
Evan Kleiman: I'm so happy to have you. I have opinions.
Marian Bull: I can't wait to hear them.
What has been America's relationship with the egg yolk?
Well, it's changed a lot over the last 70 years. Thanks to some potentially misleading scientific studies in the 1950s, there was a big fear of dietary cholesterol in the second half of the 20th century in the US. Many of us who were alive and eating in the '90s are familiar with the egg white omelet, or maybe the carton of egg whites that you or your mom might have had in the fridge at any point between let's say 1980 and 2000. But given the interest that has developed among American eaters, diners and cooks in the last 20 years for finding more locally sourced ingredients and "natural" ingredients, we've become really excited about eggs and about putting eggs on non-breakfast foods. As we've become obsessed with humane farming practices and locally sourced food, the egg yolk has become this icon of virtue, regardless of how it's reached our plates.
When did the virtues of a jammy, orange yolk move from the restaurant to the home kitchen?
The egg entered more casual fine dining restaurants in the mid to late 2000s, in part because of the popularity of Dave Chang's Momofuku in New York, but also, thanks to the recession, which was a time when fine dining chefs were finding ways to serve cheaper ingredients in fancier ways. I think that in the mid 2000s, and especially in 2020, when so many people were stuck inside cooking and watching food videos, the egg, especially the jammy, soft boiled egg, which was definitely popularized by Bon Appétit, there was a spread in the magazine in the mid 2010s that was the first mention there of the jammy, seven-minute egg. It became this affordable luxury.
Most people can cook an egg but to get that very specific, jammy, not undercooked, not hard boiled yolk, it does take a certain level of finesse. So it's super accessible but it's still something that you can fuss over. Everyone has their own way of doing it. Some people will boil the egg then put it in ice water, some people won't. Then, of course, there was the whole sous vide boom of the late 2000s, early 2010s. I think it's very familiar but especially now that we're getting these much more orange yolks on our eggs, it's a way for people to feel like they're having this little luxurious and very photogenic garnish on top of a plain bowl of pasta or rice.
Let's talk about those seductive orange yolks. Do they occur naturally?
Sometimes they do. There are certain breeds of heritage birds that do produce a darker yolk, particularly the Copper Marans hen, which has long been prized, particularly in France, I believe, for its rich flavor, its richly colored yolk. Even the egg itself is sort of a copper color, hence the name Copper Marans.
In the US, are they associated with a particular brand?
No, there are some brands that claim that some of their farms do raise Copper Marans hens and obviously there are small farms that raise them. But as far as brands that you can find in the grocery store, I think maybe one or two of them. The thing about this kind of heritage breed hen is that they don't lay as many eggs as the run-of-the-mill, industrial hen that these more high-production producers are using. So it's actually a less economically viable hen for a farmer to buy.
What are farms doing to get that yolk and seduce customers? Are they doing some kind of special feed supplementation?
There are a number of things that you can add to chicken feed to change the color of the yolk. Marigold and turmeric, I think, are two of the most popular options, which are natural ingredients and they don't really affect the flavor of the egg. There's nothing wrong with supplementing a chicken's feed with that. There's definitely something to be said for eating something that's beautiful. But there is this obfuscation of how those eggs are coming to look that way.
Yes, I understand there's a chart, sort of like a paint palette, that farmers can get and decide on what exact color of yellow to orange they want and how to go about getting that.
Yeah, it's called the yolk fan. What's really interesting is that I think in different countries and across different cultures, the color of the yolk means something different. I've heard that in England, their version of the cheap diner egg that we have here is a super orange egg whereas our cheap diner egg is a pale yellow. So it is very easy for farmers, regardless of the living conditions of their chickens, regardless of the breed of their chickens, to achieve a wide variety of colors in the yolk, from pale yellow to a deep, dark orange.
As a person who has spent a lot of time in Europe, I'm familiar with picking up a carton of eggs that has deeply orange yolks. But I had an experience here in LA recently that really made me think. I went to a restaurant that is known for making an absolutely delicious and perfect omelet. I was so jonesing on this omelet, which I'd had many, many, many times before. It was served to me and it was orange. I mean orange. There was no yellow. I started to eat it and then felt I couldn't eat it. I ended up leaving because it so disturbed me. I've thought about that so much since it happened.
It's funny how a slight change in that color gradation can really affect your experience of what you're eating. I wrote this piece for Eater about the rise of the orange egg yolk. The reason that I got this idea was that my boyfriend bought a dozen of these eggs, made scrambled eggs for us and they almost looked radioactive. They were so orange. They tasted completely fine. They tasted delicious. They tasted like scrambled eggs. But I was really put off by them. I actually spoke to Susan Spungen, who's a food stylist, for the piece. She said that she likes to buy these orange yolked eggs for photo shoots because they are so visually striking. But one time she tried to make pâte sucrée with them and she couldn't use it for the job because it looked like it had been artificially dyed. It was like if you rolled out your pie crust and it was orange.
Depending on what you feed chickens, egg yolks can be a variety of colors, from pale yellow to deep orange. Photo via Shutterstock.
It's so interesting how in a pasta, it would read perfect. It would read rich, homemade, delicious. But in a different setting, for me at least, I had the exact same experience you did.
As they say, we eat with our eyes, right? But that also means that we can be grossed out by our eyes if it goes a little too far.
Are we also linking this color to a virtuousness, a super, all-natural experience?
I absolutely think so. Let's say you go to an upscale grocer where they have a lot of different kinds of eggs that you can buy. If you scan the different labels, you will notice that these labels are trying to make you think that these chickens are just living in the lap of luxury, they have acres and acres of land available to them, they have the world's most orange yolks. There's a lot of virtue signaling in the copywriting on these labels. It can make it really confusing, as a consumer, as somebody who's shopping and wants to buy yourself a dozen eggs that hopefully don't make you feel bad about yourself. But I think that the orange yolk has definitely become a signifier of virtue, of animal welfare, of "natural" products. And I think that can lead to companies sort of taking advantage of that.
I really love when we get to nerd out in a segment so thank you for going along on this orange yolk ride with us.
It's truly my pleasure. Thanks for having me.