Photo: Diana Marcum / Los Angeles Times
Yes, you read that right. There was a festival a couple weekends ago and, well, this is a thing that really happens.
The “Turkey Testicle Festival” isn’t just some one-off event that people throw together on a whim. The people of Dunlap, California have made this an annual celebration for the last 41 years, and they couldn’t be happier about it.
Turkey Testicle Festivals Are An Actual Thing
It’s been described as the “biggest social event” this area of the state gets to attend, according to a story by The Los Angeles Times. That being the case, it’s safe to say every year the people of Dunlap…wait for it…go absolutely nuts.
“My trick is to keep flipping them until they’re crunchy,” griller Bill Celaya told The Times. “Some people don’t like them soft and gooey.”
Gooey?!
But Dunlap isn’t the only town that celebrates the magic of nuts. Two other festivals — one in North Dakota and another in Illinois — hold similar festivals. The one in North Dakota called the “Testicle Festival” was so crazy that people had the balls to riot in 2001. That one had all to do with music and nothing with turkeys. We’re not sure what testicles had to do with it, though.
As for the actual turkey balls at the Dunlap festival, they’re one of the go-to foods for the party. Apparently, Fortune Magazine wrote a piece waaaaaaaay back in the 1940s that said turkey balls are a rare delicatessen for “city slickers.”
I’m not going to jump at the opportunity to eat the nuts off a turkey. That’s just not on my list of rare foods that I want to eat. But hey, if you’re into turkey testicles, you do you. I’m not going to judge because our taste buds differ, so go ahead and get balls deep with it.
