Win A Thanksgiving Bird For Eating Deep-Fried Turkey Testicles

CHICAGO — Between the time Chicago's Thanksgiving Day Parade steps off and the final whistle blows on the Bears-Lions game, families around the city will unknowingly be competing with one another for the most awkward mealtime conversation this week. Maybe it's Grandma Sue asking your 15-year-old son if he knows a good place to get her "glaucoma" prescription filled. Or trying nearly coming to blows with a tipsy Cousin Walt over why he can't draft Jon Lester, Anthony Rizzo and Khalil Mack to his fantasy NBA team.

Even those the uncomfortable moments won't be enough to top the guaranteed uneasiness that will unfold the day before Thanksgiving at a Gold Coast bar. That's when Timothy O'Toole's Pub, 622 N. Fairbanks Court, will hold its ninth annual Turkey Testicle Festival from 11 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 21, to 3 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 22, according to Chicago Food Magazine.

Naturally, the pub's event is spread out over two days, and the customer who gobbles the most deep-fried turkey testicles during that time wins a frozen turkey for Thanksgiving Day on Thursday. Shots of Wild Turkey, however, might be more appropriate for anyone trying to win a contest that requires eating some of the less-desirable parts of a wild turkey.

After nearly a decade of this event, contest organizers at Timothy O'Toole's¹ have probably heard their share of Beavis-and-Butt-Headian chuckles and entendres.² For example …

• Male turkeys are called toms or gobblers, not cocks.
• They also don't have a cock's comb on top of their heads like roosters. Instead, they have a fleshy snood that hangs over their beaks, and the wattle hangs under the beak.
• The wrinkly areas along the neck that look like a human scrotum are known as caruncles.
• In fact, turkeys are dirty-sounding birds without even discussing the organs of regeneration. No wonder Ben Franklin — a notorious womanizer who was frightened by his own libido — supported the turkey as the national fowl.
• Only the turkeys' privates should be public. People's privates must stay private.

Now is this out of everyone's system? Good.

Along with the turkey testicle contest, the pub also will hold a pumpkin pie-eating competition during the same time. The winner will receive a $25 gift certificate, and the honor of not having eaten an unconscionable amount of a game bird's reproductive gland.

But once all the cheap laughs are had, one single question hangs over the pub and the contest: What do deep-fried turkey testicles taste like?

The answer is simple. They taste like victory.

FOOTNOTES:

¹And yes, even the establishment's name is a bit racy.

²When the examples are at the Beavis and Butt-Head level, they can only be entendres.

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