What a Ball! Serbia's Testicle Eating Festival Draws Daring Diners

OZREM, Serbia (Aug. 31) -- It may not be everybody's idea of a fun meal, but to the 200-some participants at this year's Ball Cup, a dish of animal testicles is about as good as it gets.

Welcome to the seventh annual World Testicle Cooking Championship, held in the isolated Serbian village of Ozrem.


"Man, I'm cooking donkey balls," says Nikola Vesic, gloating.

Vesic is actually a chef, but it never occurred to him to cook testicles until a friend suggested they participate in this year's competition, dubbed Ball Cup, which took place Saturday and Sunday.

"This is so new and exciting," he told AOL News. "They're extremely hard to get, too. I was lucky to have a cousin who is a veterinarian. He does a lot of castrations and kept some balls in his freezer."

When it comes to balls, the tournament's organizer, Ljubomir Erovic, has seen it all. His favorite is stallion, but probably the most freakish entry was shark testicles.

"Yes, they do have balls," he says. "I know because I ate them."

Though you could call the event a food festival, Erovic says his main goal is to keep it fun and enjoyable. He's taken to calling it "Mudstock," a play on the classic Woodstock music festival that happens to feature the Serbian word for balls.

Erovic is hardly afraid of carrying the joke too far. In addition to organizing the Ball Cup, he published a cookbook -- "Cooking with Balls" -- and heads the rock outfit the Cooking with Balls Band.

A line from his band's anthem says it all, he explains over a bowl of bull goulash: "We have the balls to change the world. Balls mean courage and wisdom, and the world could use some more of both."


The tournament draws a diverse crowd. The mainstay is middle-aged men, but there is also a children's team, a handful of hip youngsters from the capital city of Belgrade and the occasional foreigner. The attitude toward the food is roughly divided by age group: youngsters find it hilarious, while many elderly participants defiantly stare down any suggestion of weirdness.

"It's simply great meat," says Milan Sushic from Belgrade, while stirring a testicle ragout on a woodfire. "I don't eat it every day, but that's why it's called a delicacy."

For sure, in many parts of the world, from the Great Plains to Asia, animal testicles are considered regional specialties.

But for many, uneasiness with eating testicles is part of the fun.

"This is a great opportunity to grill some bull balls," says Slaven Spremo.

He is touring the countryside with his friends and having his first testicle was too good an opportunity to pass up. Spremo is most of all curious about the dish's purported effects as an aphrodisiac.

"But we'll probably have to wait until the night for it to kick in," he says, while carefully grilling the marinated bull testicles on charcoal, adding a slice of tomato here and there.

For Anna Wexler, a fire performer and writer from Israel, it was her second Ball Cup in a row.

"I just like eating weird stuff," she says. "When I read about this on the Internet last year I had to go. I had a feeling it would be completely insane, and that was proved right."

Along with insanity and the free-flowing hard liquor, the festival yields some very creative cooking. From Spremo's grilled testicles to subtle curries to bar food complete with chips and mustard, the teams obviously take the competition seriously.

Your correspondent, invited to sit on the jury, can attest that many dishes were excellent.

Even though a performance by the Cooking with Balls Band was canceled because of electrical problems, organizer Erovic is a happy man.

"We're spreading the word, and that's great. I don't think we'll hit the 10,000 participants soon, but at least we we can attract some quality people to this festival."

Indeed, people with balls.