A-Hole and Balls

It's all about keeping it classy, after all. Thus I promise: it's not as rude as it sounds.

It's a hot, sunny Friday afternoon in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. We've just returned from splashing around in the principal spring itself, a bubbling, sulphuric pool that trickles into the Yampa river. At this junction in the river is also a small waterfall that empties into a deeper pool beneath. This, we are told, is the A-Hole.

The A-Hole smells like sulphur.

There are numerous other holes along the Yampa river as it passes through the town of Steamboat Springs: the B-Hole, the Peep-Hole, and so forth. If you rent an inner tube you can float downstream through all these sites; at each you will find kids jumping off the rocks into the deep water. It's really fun.

After diving over the falls at the A-Hole, we went to lunch at one of the older restaurants in town, Double Z's. It's the kind of place where you expect to hear George Thorogood on the stereo, and do. (Seriously!). They sell t-shirts featuring two pigs having sex, bearing the motto: "Best Pork in Town."

The B-Hole has been renamed the ZZ-Hole in honor of this Steamboat institution.

After our plunges through the A-Hole, we visited the Double Z for lunch, because this, of course, is the restaurant in Steamboat known for serving Rocky Mountain Oysters.

And the verdict? A) the good part: bull's testicles, sliced and flattened, are similar to sweetbreads in both flavor and consistency. Thus, as I had hoped. Not only were they inoffensive, they hold the promise of being delicious. A delicacy rather than a dare.

B) the bad part: as the photo we took illustrates, the "oysters" were deep-fried virtually beyond recognition. And fried food tends to taste, well, like fried food. So if we reached a saturation point in our testicle-munching, it was less for the peculiarity of the organ than for the limitations of the preparation.

But there's a world of possibility here-- and I wonder which adventurous western chefs have explored this organ for its highbrow possibilities. Not that I think it requires a highbrow preparation. I wonder if, just like real, aquatic oysters, there's a way to enjoy them simply. Not raw, of course. But perhaps roasted over a prairie fire?