Rocky Mountain oysters
dish made of bovine testicles
Rocky Mountain oysters, mountain oysters, or prairie balls, also known as prairie oysters in Canada (French: animelles), is a dish made from bulls’ testicles. The organs are often deep-fried after being skinned, coated in flour, pepper and salt, and sometimes pounded flat. The dish is most often served as an appetizer.
Description
The dish is served in parts of Canada, where cattle ranching is prevalent and castration of young male animals is common. "Prairie oysters" is the preferred name in Canada where they are served in a demi-glace. In Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, they are often called calf fries. In Spain, Argentina and many parts of Mexico, they are referred to as criadillas, and they are colloquially referred to as huevos de toro (literally, "bull's eggs"; besides its literal meaning, huevos is a Spanish slang term for testicles) in Central and South America. A few other terms, such as "cowboy caviar", "Montana tendergroins", "dusted nuts", "swinging beef", or simply "mountain oysters" may be used.
The dish, purportedly cowboy fare, is most commonly found served at festivals, amongst ranching families, or at certain specialty eating establishments and bars. They are, however, also readily available at some public venues (e.g., at Coors Field during Colorado Rockies baseball games).
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This entry incorporates text from “Rocky Mountain oysters” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.