VIRGINIA CITY, Nev. — The judges gathered around the pool table at the Union Brewery Saloon, their palates attuned despite thick nicotine haze. They were here to assess the taste, texture, appearance and creative flair of a not-for-the-faint-of-heart culinary tradition known as the mountain oyster — the Wild West on a plate.
Of all the country’s gastronomic competitions, from “Top Chef” to pies at the county fair, perhaps none compare to the challenge facing the harried chefs assembled here in a parking lot for the 18th annual International Comstock Mountain Oyster Fry. Classically dipped in cornmeal and then fried, or artfully concealed in scrambled eggs, bordelaise sauce or sushi, these oysters were not of the Chesapeake or bluepoint variety but, rather, a cornerstone of Western ranching culture involving testicles from gelded lambs and calves.
“It takes a strong stomach,” said Nicki Wilson, 33, an office manager for a towing company who was bent on becoming the Tom Colicchio of mountain oysters with a taco recipe laced with tequila, cumin and cayenne.
The cooking of testicles — also known as calf fries or lamb fries — is a living tradition on ranches throughout rural Nevada and the Intermountain West down through Central Texas (the annual fry here is nicknamed the “testicle festival”). This feat of derring-do harks back to the days when every part of an animal was used, and settlers by necessity “had a rather investigative spirit when it came to food,” said Cathy Luchetti, the author of “Home on the Range: A Culinary History of the American West” (Villard, 1993).
Liz Chabot, 77, who grew up on a ranch near the fly-speck town of Paradise Valley, Nev., described the delicacy as “a taste like none other,” and recalled how the fries were thrown into the fire at branding time, pulled out with a stick and then peeled and eaten like a fresh fig.
“They couldn’t get them done fast enough,” Ms. Chabot said by telephone. “Generally, after a mountain oyster feed, there were no leftovers. It was a celebration with family and friends. Of course, it wasn’t a social event for the calves.”
Although animal rights groups decry the castrating of cattle, pigs and sheep as cruel, it is a common agricultural practice intended to make males more manageable and their meat tender.
The oyster fry continues to be a communal ritual where physical distance is a fact of life — an excuse for men who have spent the day wrestling, branding and vaccinating 400-pound calves “to sit under the trees, eat and tell stories,” said Carolyn Duferrena, a school principal who lives on a ranch outside Winnemucca, Nev., and is the co-author of “Sharing Fencelines: Three Friends Write from Nevada’s Sagebrush Corner” (University of Utah, 2002).
The oysters are sometimes saved and served as hor d’oeuvres at wedding receptions, Ms. Duferrena said.
The tradition in Nevada is strongly associated with the Basque sheepherders who came to Nevada in significant numbers in the late 19th century. The yellowed pages of many a family cookbook include recipes for “bildoch pesta,” lamb fest or lamb party, with the ingredients — much to the consternation of outsiders — sometimes obtained with the teeth.
“It’s a Basque comfort food,” said Lisa Aguirre, 54, a descendant from Reno who was standing in the parking lot of the Bucket of Blood Saloon, waiting for the oyster tasting to begin. “Everybody is going to tell you they taste like chicken,” Ms. Aguirre added. “That’s a lie.”
Known as the freewheeling saloon town on the long-running television series “Bonanza,” Virginia City sprang up from the silver riches of the nearby Comstock lode and has gone through booms and busts. Yet it remains remarkably intact, right down to the picturesque wooden sidewalks. But its historic link to mountain oyster ranching culture is tangential at best: rich miners imported the genuine item from San Francisco, iced and carried by rail over the Sierra, said Guy Rocha, the director emeritus of the Nevada state archives.
He described Virginia City as a place that had attracted nonconformists who came to “live out their cowboy outlaw fantasies.”
“They love these special events,” Mr. Rocha added, “because it’s like Chautauqua. It gives them a stage on which to play a character.”
The city retains an atmosphere of renegade bohemia in which it is possible to spot a woman decked out in lace sitting in a saloon with a pistol in her cleavage. Tourism is now Virginia City’s calling card: the fry, dreamed up by a local saloonkeeper to kick off the tourist season, joins the International Chili Society Cook-Off (May), the International Camel Race (September) and the Virginia City Outhouse Races (October). And Thunder on the Comstock attracts thousands of motorcyclists every September.
Hundreds of local gourmands drive the steep, winding grade from nearby Reno and Carson City to do their own judging. Seven teams of up to four chefs each had two hours to prepare dishes using 20 pounds of the jiggling raw ingredient (flown in from Australia this year). Ms. Wilson’s oyster taco emerged victorious in the “overall taste” category, winning a huge tiered trophy with angels and a golden sheep.
Among the competition was a Virginia City version of “cowboy sushi” by a past champion, Brandi Lee, a graphic artist.
Unlike Top Chefs, mountain oyster chefs face the peculiar challenge of getting the squeamish to try their dishes.
Sometimes even the chefs themselves cannot work up the courage. “I don’t eat them,” Ms. Wilson, the award-winner, admitted. “It’s very sad.”