put your hands up...who has eaten an emu egg??

Well I have!!  After first thinking that the Emu was an extinct bird, Nic delivered an egg for me to try.   I was very happy to try the egg after he reassured me that it was not the last egg left on earth.  It was almost too beautiful to use.

 Nic just hammered his one open 
but I got Mike to drill a whole in each end

and blew the contents out. I remembered my dad doing that with an ostrich egg

 To give you an idea of the size of the egg

 With a bit of milk, salt and pepper and scrambled with butter

Getting there

This was the finished product and for love or money I cannot 
turn this picture around
So please turn your head
(sorry too that I had no parsley to garnish it properly)

The scrambled egg was lovely.  Quite rich and perhaps I should have used a whisk and not a fork because the egg white was a tad lumpy (if you know what I mean?).   But highly recommended with a creamy and delicate flavour.

So we get on to chatting about emus, their eggs and other stuff and Gareth tells me that emus are being imported from Australia to South Africa and are in great demand with our farmers.  They use the meat, eggs, feathers and toenails (for jewelry).  I don't know where he became an expert on these strange birds (certainly not from his mother).  Please don't buy me any jewelry with emu toenails though!! 

Then Dalene pops in to visit the other evening with a very glowing skin.  "What'sup with the shine?" asks I (politely).  "A mother at my school is selling this new miracle oil from the Emu", she responds (defensively).   She proceeds to leave a sample with me and fill me in on all the wonderful benefits of this oil - supposed to be an anti-inflammatory as well, so good for sore muscles and joints.  According to the next emu expert in my family, if an emu gets bumped by a car and is so sick and bruised the farmer thinks that it is about to die and about to put it out of it's misery. Then, amazingly, within a very short period of time it can revitalise itself, fluff out it's feathers and start running at around 60 kms an hour as though nothing has ever happened to it.  (Deary me, no wonder it is not extinct).

R130 for 150ml - not too shabby and it feels great

(I am the one who uses Waitrose Baby Bottom Butter on her face as well, remember?)

Gee Whizz!!!  The amazing emu.  In just 10 days, I have held and eaten it's ovum, I have an empty shell in my fruit bowl and now I am putting the oil from it's posterior gland on my face.   

All this from a bird I thought was extinct.  (Apologies to my Tasmanian friend).