Quail eggs.

We had lunch yesterday at friends of ours in the subdivision here, along with other friends K and B who drove in from downtown. S cooked up an Asian chicken dish, along with rice and peas, and a huge platter of stir-fried vegetables. In with the vegetables were these small round light brown things that I thought were the tops of button mushrooms. When I bit into one, it tasted like an egg.

Not just any old egg..... S told us that they were quail eggs. Now, I have seen live quail out in Arizona... they walk all around the neighborhood where my Uncle T and Aunt M live... cute little quail families crossing the roads all the time... the mother and father, followed by two or three baby quail that have to run faster to keep up with their parents.

And now those little quail eggs were on my plate. Well. I ate the one that was mixed in with my vegetables, but I made sure not to take any more of them. All I could picture in my mind was a tiny baby quail rushing to keep up with the mama quail.

But you eat chicken eggs.... said our friend K. Somehow that's just different. I don't know why, but it is. Maybe if I had chickens in my yard here, I would hesitate eating those eggs as well. Or maybe it's just that I've been eating chicken eggs for all of my life. It's a known food source, not a memory of cute little feathered birds running from one Arizona rock garden to the next.