PRINTNo bones, just balls
Going nuts in Olean
Jennifer Whitney
At the 14th Annual Olean Testicle Festival, Lisa Zaugg of Boonville (left), and Stephanie Craig of Sedalia experience their first taste of freshly fried turkey testicles thanks to ballsy cook Larry Duncan of Boonville.
June 7, 2007 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Under a tent housing a dozen or so heavily scarred picnic benches, Terri Miller pokes at the contents in her red and white striped paper box. She’s psyching herself up to eat one.
“There’s one on top that has no breading on it,” she says. “I’m not sure about this.”
Rocky Mountain Oysters
2 pounds bull testicles, split and soaked in salt water for 1 hour
1 cup unbleached white flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 cup red wine
salt, pepper, garlic powder to taste
Louisiana Hot Sauce
lard, milk, vinegar and oil
Add enough water to float balls and one tablespoon of vinegar. Parboil, drain and rinse. Let cool and slice each into 1/4-inch thick ovals. Roll in flour, cornmeal and garlic powder. Dip into milk, dry mixture and wine. Place into hot cooking oil, and fry until brown.
Lamb fry
2 dozen lambs fry (testicles)
1 cup chopped ham and bacon
1 clove garlic
bay leaf, herbs and spices
3 ounces butter
unbleached white flour
homemade stock (chicken or beef)
Blanch, and strip off outer membrane. Pat dry, and cut into thin slices. Lard each piece with bacon and ham, and roll it in chopped herbs and a pinch of pounded spice. Dip in flour, and braise in stock. Add three ounces of butter, some bits of bacon, ham, a bay leaf, herbs and a garlic clove. Cook until well-glazed and serve.
Goat testicle stew
8 - 10 pairs of goat testicles
salted water
1 large chopped onion
2 cups celery, chopped
several chili peppers, seeded and chopped
Boil the testicles in natural saltwater. Throw onions, chili peppers and celery in the pot. Let it boil for approximately 1 1/2 hours. Serve with mashed potatoes.
Source: westonaprice.org
“Put some hot sauce on it,” her husband, Tom, says. “They taste like chicken gizzards.”
“That one’s too big,” she says, digging through the pile of fried brown nuggets. “OK, this one.”
The odor is strong and distinctive, yet hard to describe, something like overcooked chicken. The humid air holds close a burnt, sour smell. Terri impulsively and swiftly pops one in her mouth and begins to chew. She shrugs and takes a long pull from her soda.
“It doesn’t taste bad; it’s just knowing what it is,” she says. “I kinda have goose bumps, but you hear ‘testicle festival,’ and you gotta go.”
In the tiny hamlet of Olean, population 157, just outside of Eldon about 60 miles south of Columbia, the 14th Annual Testicle Festival is in full swing.
The meat itself is chewy and tastes not unlike a piece of popcorn chicken, but it has a peculiar salty, tangy aftertaste that hangs in the back of the throat.
“How are you doing on those?” asks a man at a nearby table.
“I think I’m full,” Terri says, pushing the box away.
Over at the preparation tent, teenage volunteers busily tote, drain, butterfly and bread buckets of raw testicles marinating in buttermilk. Here, the mixture has an acrid, sweet smell that pervades the ramshackle mosquito-netted bivouac.
“The festival is to help the town out, fix up the roads,” says Chris Roberts, an Olean Jaycees volunteer who has been coordinating and cooking at the festival since its inception in 1992.
“The testicles are all from turkeys and come out of Cargill in California (Mo.),” he says. “We ordered 1,000 pounds this year, so they saved them and donated them to us. Every one has to be cleaned and cut. If they aren’t cut, and you put them in the fryer, they’ll explode.”
The cooks clang a bell after each batch is finished. At the end of the vendor’s thoroughfare, the band begins to play “Layla” by Eric Clapton.
For a moment, the music displaces the throaty roar of the motorcycles that come and go in a constant stream. Over the clamor, purveyor Jeff Strzelecki hawks his wares.
“Come on, don’t be shy,” he bellows with the glee of a mall Santa, except he wears a bandana and leather biker vest. “Get your nuts while they’re hot. I like mine kinda warm. They come in pairs, so you have to get two,” he says.
His call works, and people begin to line up.
Sons and daughters of the soil, husbands and wives, children, scantily clad biker babes and heavily tattooed bare-chested men bustle back and forth on Main Street with funnel cakes, turkey fries and beer. Everybody is in on the joke, and they’re eating it up.
