FoodStuff - Look what I found in my soup!
John Lethlean
John Lethlean, culinary critic
There’s something about eating animal genitals that never fails to stimulate the public’s imagination. Of all the food phobias, this is the one that seems darkest.
Roll cameras, microphone check…. The guy’s about to eat a dick.
There’s an hilarious scene captured during actor Ewan McGregor’s five-hour documentary Long Way Round during which he and fellow London-New York-by-motorcycle adventurer Charlie Boorman find themselves before a steaming cauldron of assorted testicles, a vast, grey soup of emasculated protein. They’re in the middle of absolutely nowhere (sorry to all our Mongolian readers) sitting cross-legged under a yurt and on the receiving end of a little local hospitality. I’ve seen Scots put their hands in their pocket to shout a beer faster than the actors and crew ate one half of a shrill Mongolian sheep’s set of balls.
Good telly.
Then, a while back in The Age there was a story from Beijing – China being the prime source of most of these grizzly food stories – on the opening of the restaurant Guolizhuang, which not coincidentally sounds a little like goolie-zhuang to me.
It’s China's first speciality penis restaurant. You probably read the story: it was prime water-cooler stuff for Monday morning.
“Here,” said the report “businessmen and government officials can sample the organs of yaks, donkeys, oxen and even seals. In fact, they have to, since they form part of every dish - except for those containing testicles.”
This might be the era of the little blue pill but in China, you apparently are still what you eat and the diners are mainly men eager to improve their yang, or virility. Surprise surprise.
The Age’s correspondent sampled ox, deer and Mongolian goat (more than McGregor managed) noting the latter was “a little stringy (and) had the appearance and feel of overcooked squid tentacles.” Mmmmmm, calamari. The meal also included Xinjiang horse and donkey, with testicles. Canadian seal penis at $517 requires ordering in advance, as indeed do all the best dishes in your better Chinese restaurant.
Penises and testicles are at the very tip, so to speak, of the triangle that is extreme or unmentionable cuisine. Some organs (calves’ liver, for example, or that of a force fed goose) are “do’s” and others, “maybes.” And then there’s genitalia.
“There is… one compelling reason that has made the genitals of four legged creatures attractive to two-legged diners,” writes author and Thailand resident (now there’s a country where cuisine has to be exceptionally extreme to rank as extreme) Jerry Hopkins in his book Extreme Cuisine (a worthy title but one likely to be eclipsed in history by his better-known story of Jim Morrison and The Doors No One Here Gets Out Alive). “In a word, it’s called ‘testosterone’, the sex hormone secreted by the testes.”
Compared to eating the placenta of your own new-born (which broad-minded as I like to think I am when it comes to food, I find utterly repugnant, and of which Hopkins writes in his book), penises and testicles are a stroll in the park.
You don’t have to hunt long down in the Vietnamese enclaves for a pho shop that does beef pizzle, which is basically the organ in question, dried and sliced. I had a go at it a few years back. Can’t say I came home wanting to revisit the wedding night, but if you like textural things such as tendon, and gizzard and jellyfish, well, why not? The little grey discs are slippery, without any particular flavour, and come in chunks about the size and shape of cane candy. Sure beats some of the things I’ve eaten down in Victoria Street.
I had a go as pigs testicles once too.
Strangely, in what is considered the definitive book on the subject of weird food – Unmentionable Cuisine – author and veterinary scientist Calvin Schwabe makes no reference, so far as I can see, to eating penises, yet fills many pages on the subject of testicles (when he’s not talking about the culinary adventure of eating spiders, bats, dogs and guinea pig “creole style”).
“The testicles of young animals are very good food,” writes Schwabe, fondly reminiscing on his days as a veterinary student “when stable hands used to throw dice to see who got the larger, meal-sized ‘goodies’ whenever a horse or mature bull was brought into the clinic for castration.”
Aren’t the Americans a contradictory lot?
I had my testicles cooked for me by Italian chef of note Guy Grossi; despite his skills, I couldn’t get excited by the experience, but then kidneys are one of the few things I don’t enjoy, and these piggy balls were definitely kidney-like.
What strikes me about all this is the lack of gender balance. Clearly there is a great history of eating male animal organs for nutrition/perceived performance enhancement, but what of the female organs?
My closest personal brush was in Vietnam a few years ago when we found ourselves confronted by the waiter at a particular quan doing his best impersonation of a goat, followed by hand movements suggestive of a shapely bust. I have to tell you, barbecued goat’s udder is not something you need put on your list for the nest trip to Saigon. Horrid.
Schwabe’s only reference is the inclusion of the Ancient Roman recipe for vulvulae botelli, a sausage made from a pig’s uterus stuffed with pork meat, various herbs, spices and pine nuts. It sounds rather good, actually.
“I have included this recipe for the cook who has successfully subjugated most of the family’s food prejudices,” writes Schwabe “and is interested in having his or her culinary reputation recognised.”
Recognised by whom? A judge of the Family Court of Australia?
We may like stranger-than-fiction pieces in our Saturday paper, or developed-world-meets-noble-nomad television, but when it comes to eating genitalia, it’s very much a case of not in my back yard and most definitely, not in my kitchen.
Some food phobias will always need just a little illumination.
From a collection of John’s food writing 2005-2008.
Follow John Lethlean and Necia Wilden on Twitter as they eat and drink their way around Australia
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