We saved the testicles for Teresa

I grew up eating poultry organ meats, but that was about it.

In my late 40's I found the Weston Price Foundation, began farming organic livestock, and became a WAPF Chapter Leader.  A whole new world of eating nose to tail opened up for me.  

My first venture was beef tongue.  That first bite was eerily bouncing around in my brain that I was French kissing a cow.  But after the second bite, when those super tender, juicy, roast beefy fibers of meat were masticated into pulp and then swallowed, that dreamy, superb taste and texture became a wonderful, fixed memory in my mind. 

We'd have Mexicans, Africans and Bosnian's over to buy live livestock and harvest it on our farm.  I watched how they saved EVERYTHING from ruminant heads, intestines, stomach, hooves and testicles to poultry feathers, heads and feet.  

I asked them all kinds of questions about how they used the offal, organs and other parts.  They had a use for almost every single part of the animal. Many of these first-generation immigrants were superior in health to most Americans.  

They had wide palates, straight teeth, clear minds and strong bodies.  They continued to eat their ancestral diet when they moved here because it's all they knew.  

But, I also noticed their children weren't quite as healthy as the parents, their teeth weren't as straight and their faces were somewhat narrower.  Most of their children ate school breakfast and lunches.

Eventually, I'd come to love preformed eggs that were just yolks growing along a cord which I'd remove from old laying hens I'd harvested for bone broth.  I use chicken/turkey/duck/goose heads and feet to make my uber thick bone broth, along with poultry carcasses. 

So when it came time to try rooster testicles, I wasn't too shy.  You have to be very gentle pulling them out because they burst easily, and there are only two, so they are pretty precious. Rooster testicles led to ruminant testicles which are considered a delicacy in many other parts of the world. 

Besides WAPF, another profound change in my thinking and meat use was early on I read a farm girl's detailed account of how she made a chicken last five meals for a family of six.  

Bone broth took on its own life at that point and became the foundation for many dishes.

Remember hearing how Native Americans would give honor to the spirit of the animal they used for food?  

I feel using as much of the animal as I can is a way of giving honor to my Creator for his provision, and not wasting any of it, which in itself honors the animal. 

Every meal I place on our dining table is my family's health insurance.

- Teresa

Wise Home Life (natural living forum)
WAPF Chapter Leader, Central Iowa
Real Food Sourcer