"Cow Balls"

It's not very often that I can say I am directly confronted with my manhood; and it's also not something I expect to occur on a routine visit to my butcher. However, yesterday I was up at the front counter of Aubrey's trying to decide what the line-up would be for the Canada Day long weekend when I spotted a container labelled "Mountain Oysters". Despite my love of all-things-food, I am always learning new things; so I turned to Brian, the proprietor, and asked him what they were.

"...you know what they are", he answered with a knowing mano-a-mano wink; it immediately dawned on me, somewhat naively, what the translucent egg shapped items were.

"Lambs testicles.... balls" he added mischeivously, in a whisper out of ear shot of the other customers.

"What do they taste like?"

"I have no idea", he laughed. And we left it at that.

Now when the Uber Chef talks about "nasty bits" this is the sort of thing that comes to mind. After a late night in the office, I was a little dopey. Had my brain been engaged I would have known what I was looking at. Granted I didn't expect them to have come from a lamb... that lamb had big balls! And actually, I've eaten lamb testicles .... by mistake, of course - it's not generally something I would order off a menu. But I probably misheard Brian - I'm pretty sure they came from a cow. Regardless, I wasn't going to buy them.

My knowledge of the english language fails me at this point. If there isn't already, there should be a word that relates to the sensation that is created with the sound of a word - kind of like a sensory or tactile Onomatopoeia. When I envisioned cutting in to those "mountain oysters" I shivered. Seriously, some impulse was transmitted to that part of the nerve centre that controls pain and sensation, and I felt something...

I mean really, who were the folks who first sat there and thought... "hmmm, them things look like good eatin' !".

Apparently the origins of eating "balls" goes back to roman times. This shouldn't surprise me, I guess. I mean, we've all heard how they seperated the men from the boys in ancient rome (...with a crowbar). In modern times mountain oysters are quite a hit with the cowboy crowd.... a little Brokeback Mountain, maybe? And in Asia they're considered an aphrodesiac... but thank you very much, I'm quite content with my sex life; and when things start to go awry I'm going to turn to Viagra.

But let's be quite clear - my reluctance has nothing to do with squemishness. I'm willing to try alot, and I have... but I am not about to eat something that's going to cause me to shiver with each slice... a kind of culinary voodoo. I'll leave that to those crazy cowboys.

... as the cow says http://www.funnypicture.ws/content/24613.html !