Reuters

You're familiar with Rocky Mountain oysters, right? And lamb fries? That is to say, you understand that the testicles of some animals are eaten as delicacies, or at least novelties.

Well, what Rocky Mountain oysters are to calves, 'short fries' are to turkeys.

Yes, it's true. Turkey testicles—fried.

Writer and New School food studies professor Andrew F. Smith relates the practice in his wonderful overview of (North) America's bird, The Turkey. He situates the consumption of "short fries" within the development of increasingly technological ways of breeding, slaughtering, and preparing poultry.

Until the 1930s (and into the 1950s), one could purchase a "New York style" turkey that left the heads, feet, and entrails in place. But "ready-to-cook" turkeys displaced the older style. And now we all know what a turkey looks like when you get one from the supermarket. It's defeathered, eviscerated, wrapped in plastic, with a few innards tucked inside in a pouch.

As food manufacturers sold less of the total bird to consumers, they were left with large supplies of extra parts, which they enterprisingly sold to other customers.

"Historically, none of the turkey was wasted. The heads and feet were sold to fish hatcheries, and fat was extracted from the entrails for making chicken soup," Smith writes. In 1943, he continues, Fortune Magazine reported that the "oil sacs in the tail have medicinal uses. Testicles are regarded as a rare delicacy by city slickers who relish them as 'short fries.' What is left is sent to a rendering plant."