DEERFIELD, Mich. — We’ve all heard the expression “grab the bull by the horns,” but a festival in Deerfield, Mich., this weekend aims for a more, shall, we say, “sensitive” spot on the bovine body.
If past events are any indication, the 18th annual Testicle Festival at American Legion Deerfield will draw more than 1,000 people to taste something as exotic as it sounds.
The euphemisms for deep-fried bull testicles are many — Rocky Mountain oysters, calf fries, swinging steak — and yet their description is always the same: “It tastes like chicken.”
At least, that’s the usual flavor assessment.
Kelly Savino, 57, an artist at Botanical Garden who considers herself to be an adventurous eater, offered this variation to the homogeneous taste of the delicate delicacy: “It reminded me of calamari, rubbery and salty,” she said. “It wasn't a strong flavor [and] it was not unpleasant. It was more of a rubbery texture thing.”
Not that it really matters, she added: “Anything you can fry is going to be good.”
Good? Perhaps. Popular? Definitely.
Midwest oysters, if you will allow for a more regional colloquialism, have been a big draw for nearly 20 years at the Testicle Festival at the American Legion in Deerfield, Mich. (including Savino and her husband, Jeff, last year), and for decades before that at fry-and-serve events in and around the village in Lenawee County.
For Saturday’s 18th annual Testicle Festival at 105 W. River St. somewhere between 1,500 to 2,000 attendees, some making the trek from Canada and Indiana, are expected to wait in line for an hour or two at the American Legion for a plate of fried bull testicles and chicken gizzards, as well as beans, slaw, and a roll, and then in another line for the beer and alcohol necessary to wash it down.
As noted by Al Rau, the finance officer of the American Legion, “Beer helps anything.” In fact, the event informally begins at 10 a.m. when the bar opens — not at noon when food is first served — and unofficially continues with alcohol service well after the Testicle Festival runs out of its namesake. At that point the American Legion will also begin serving quarter-pound hot dogs, “to sober up the people who don’t eat the ...” well, you know.
Admission to the event is free, but a dinner is $9 and beer and mixed drinks are $3. T-shirts, in men’s and women’s styles, will be available for $12, sweatshirts for $17, and hooded sweatshirts for $27, as well as the ever-popular Koozie for bottles and cans.
Testicles and beer may not sound appetizing or even family friendly, but its roots are in an annual community event put on by a local farmer with some rather specific frozen meats to share from his slaughterhouse, Rau said.
The initial event got too big for the farmer, so another farmer took it over, until it got too big for him, at which point it was moved to the Ottawa Lake Sportsman Club in Blissfield, until — yes — it got too big for that location and was relocated to the Deerfield Tavern, which it did not outgrow.
“They closed in 2000 and we took it over in 2001,” Rau said. “We ... figured it was a way to make a buck.”
Putting aside the sophomoric and punny jokes about the Testicle Festival, the event is a serious business for the American Legion Deerfield as its major fund-raiser for the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and the Deerfield community, including providing funeral services for veterans buried in the area cemetery.
Rau said they will go through 300 pounds of testicles, 200 pounds of gizzards, and about 350 cases of beer. Each testicle is skinned and then sliced into about a dozen quarter-inch pieces, which are breaded and deep-fried and yield enough for a plate or possibly two of the 400-plus dinners that will be served.
And when they run out of testicles, they don’t restock — from the refrigerator, the grocery, the butcher, or anywhere else.
“They’re gone,” Jeff Savino cautioned, “even if you’ve stood in line for an hour and a half.”
For him, the Testicle Festival was a bucket list experience to be checked off and a commemorative T-shirt, bought and earned.
For Savino, “as the spouse who was dragged along” to the event, the Testicle Festival “was payback from him for going to the crafts festivals with me.”
While both said they enjoyed their time and the food at the Testicle Festival, the Savinos consider it a one-and-done event, although Jeff is open to a return visit under the right set of circumstances.
“If I had people in from out of town, good buddies, in that same weekend, then I’d say, ‘let’s go’ just for the novelty of it,” he said.
As for the novelty of the dish, Jeff offered this as a recommendation: “It’s an experience worth having, but not necessarily worth repeating.”
First Published March 20, 2019, 10:22 p.m.
