Would you pay $40 for one ostrich egg?

At Whole Foods Market in Paramus on Thursday, shoppers were offered samples of scrambled ostrich egg.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

I do a lot of gawking when I'm in Whole Foods Market in Paramus -- and not just at the prices.

On Thursday, I saw a California-raised ostrich egg for sale in the produce department.

I wouldn't pay $39.99 for such a huge egg. Would you?

I loved the big-yolk duck eggs sold at Goffle Road Poultry Farm in Wyckoff, but stopped buying them when the price shot up to about $2 an egg. 

At Whole Foods, a cook offered samples of scrambled ostrich egg. He said the yolk was bigger than his fist.

Guess what? It tasted like a chicken egg.

It's a fish-eat-fish world.

At the fish counter, I gawked at the heads of a grouper and a monkfish displayed on a bed of ice.

The monkfish (at right in the photo) came from Barnegat Light, one of New Jersey's premier fishing ports.

Fresh, wild-caught coho salmon fillet was $16.99, compared to the $10.99 a pound my wife paid on Wednesday at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

I bought frozen, antibiotic-free chicken backs and necks for $1.29 a pound and frozen, organic chicken feet for $3.99 a pound (all for soup).

Alaskan wild salmon for breakfast and dinner

Here it is October, and I am still enjoying fresh wild salmon from Costco. The price is the same as the Northwest sockeye fillets I started buying in June ($8.99 a pound), but now this Alaskan fish is coho, a variety with less of those beneficial Omega-3 fatty acids.

I'm wild over this salmon because of its deep color, great taste and how you get a nutritious meal after only 10 to 15 minutes in the oven, seasoned with salt, Aleppo pepper (coarse, red, with a little heat) and fresh chopped herbs. I like my fillet on the rare side.

I cut my $11 fillet into six portions. For dinner the first night, we baked red potatoes in the microwave, heated up organic mixed vegetables and made a salad of organic greens. The remaining three fillets went into the fridge, ready for my mid-morning sandwich on toasted whole-grain bread with pesto, organic greens, sliced tomato with the herb mixture called za'atar, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

Smoked wild salmon comparison

Image via Wikipedia

If you're looking for an alternative to Costco's 1-pound package of smoked wild salmon, you might not find it at Trader Joe's. 


I bought a 4-ounce package of smoked wild coho salmon from Trader Joe's and found I didn't like its pale color and smoky taste. Neither has preservatives.

Costco uses sockeye salmon to Trader Joe's coho ($3.99 for 4 ounces). That obviously makes a difference in color if nothing else. You can also taste Costco's salmon, not just smoke. 


You'll pay $13.99 a pound for Costco's Alaskan salmon or the equivalent of nearly $16 a pound for Trader Joe's Pacific salmon.

Last year, I tried Trader Joe's smoked wild king salmon, which comes from much bigger fish, and found it way too salty.