Also, Keck clearly has repressed testicle-issues from childhood and should bring this issue up with his therapist.

That said, thank God for Tim.

Hey everybody!!! Look!!! I'm eating a testicle!!! See how original I am?!?

@6: "Rocky Mountain Oysters" have been around a lot longer than hipsterism. Go read some history of bull worship/cults - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_%28mythology%29
to get an idea of what's behind this.

I don't eat turkey necks and chicken hearts for attention or originality (What the fuck? Originality? For eating something obscure? Just shut the fuck up. Please.) I eat them because I think they taste damn good.

As for the balls (I've never tried them), I highly doubt anybody is eating them for attention and/or 'originality'. Assuming you're a vegetarian, or worse, vegan, you can suck my nuts if you think there is anything original about that.

It's not easy being me.

-p.s. there is something wrong with that last picture(like it's human balls pasted onto a steer) in any case those are to dangly and would not be eaten(much to old and human looking)the mountain oysters are usually gotten from a much younger calf.

Just my 2c.

The first photo Keck picked is somewhat misleading. It could be anything. It looks like KFC. It could be batter-fried testicles. Or chicken, or potatoes or onions or pork rinds or... well, anything really. It looses any impact for a story about cooking testicles. It is almost irrelevant.

The second photo Schmader picked is a terrible photo, and Keck was correct to reject it. Even if it is real, it looks Photoshopped. It also looks pretty gross, and faintly ridiculous. Just because some idiot can snap a pic with a camera phone does not mean it is worthy of publication.

Surely someone somewhere could find a decent photo of testicles that are about ready to be harvested or cooked testicles that actually look something vaguely like testicles.

And, yeah, between the article and the photo(s), I'm having a sudden urge to switch to vegetarian. Ugh.

-hipsterlite

The balls are from older calves that you heard together every three or four months - spring, summer and fall.

You corral the herd, take all the bull calves one by one and castrate them, de horn them, and brand them, and vaccinate or medicate if needed. Hard work, but must do in the ranching business. And after a few times, you get very good at it, fast and skilled.

Using s small razor sharp knife, high grade pocket knife, you cut off the bottom of the scrotum and THEN pull the nuts out with your teeth - nice clean process, and put the calf testicles in a pan with salt water. The cut doggie heals quickly - some ranches will use a dusting of sulfa powder, but not most.

They (oysters) are pan fried, butter, or bacon fat, for dinner that evening, and eaten with relish by all.

Thus life goes on in rural work - all over the world. Fried nuts are a delicacy in all countries that raise cattle, as in New Zealand, Australia, and Argentina, Europe. etc.

This is not a Montana only thing - internationalism at its best.

Just tellin' you all.

what kind of relish? kosher, zucchini, triple pepper, Piccalilli, or would a Chimchurry of some sort work??

Relish in the case of fried testicles means a home made pickle relish - but - yes, relish the eating is OK too ...

One leaves the scrotal sac in castration - you do not want a big hole on the underside of the calf, it heals into a knot of fatty tissue - sans testes - and as the steer, no longer a bull, matures - that fatty up to the body sac/bulge, is observed as a sign of good condition and health.

Pulling the testicles with teeth is standard among sheep herders as well and much easier. Lambs can be picked up easily. I do not remember any sheep testicle ever saved to eat - much smaller, farm dog fare on the spot.

Hope this helps you all.

Isn't the selection of a photo in an issue of the paper generally up to the editor-in-chief to make at nearly the very last resort?

How often does a publisher step in on these things.

I mean - really?

....later on some ranchers went on to electric branding irons/squeeze chutes ehhh what ya gonna do??

brandings used to be an outing I was required to do, I'm neither proud nor ashamed, and the balls once pulled from the membrane are actually quite tasty.

Call, I am over heated by memories of the branding fire - and late that night by remembering the good whiskey, bottle gulps, and then the genuine group suck off - still an old fashioned cowboy - and my take on balls is very expert - bring spurs, Stetson, and those red top socks, boots optional -- and -- some long soft leather strips -

JB

rowrr---
ballboy

Yes, yes, yes - you pull the testicle out by a bite of your teeth. The cord by which they are attached gives way and tears easily with a tug of the head

Quite sanitary and better than any other way to get a grip on the very slimy hard to handle slippery testicles.

Yeah, teeth. Primal and functional and sanitary - imagine dirty dysfunctional metal nippers in the dust and muss of the corral - infection time.

Go teeth. Good training for chewing nipples, too.

Above - appurtenances - the old double pp

Think pairs as in

Testicles

Speaking only for myself, I find the food section appealing precisely because it's one section of the paper that isn't always trying to top itself in a perpetual pube-o-rama gross-out contest (although
I did chuckle at "Offally Good" a few
months back).

If the article had been in the features section of the paper - not the restaurnat section - then fine. It does not belong in a food section.

Good call Tim.