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Nevada Unique Events
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Nevada Unique Events
Rocky Mountain Oyster Fry
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Nevada Unique Events
Ranch Hand Rodeo
By Charlie Johnson
RANCH HAND RODEO
Billed as the largest such rodeo in Nevada, Winnemucca’s Ranch Hand Rodeo, February 26-March 2, highlights real working cowboys and cowgirls in action. Upwards of 30 teams compete for bragging rights, money, and prizes in the
24-year-old event that features saddle bronc riding, calf roping, wild mugging, team roping, ranch doctoring, and team branding.
Like many Nevada rodeos, there is more to the event than just rodeo competition. The five-day Ranch Hand Rodeo also features kids contests, ranch dog competitions,
a stock horse challenge, and a western trade show with vendors offering saddles, tack, western jewelry, leatherwork items, and more. Organizers call the horses offered at the rodeo’s horse sale the best ranching, roping, and performance horses in the West, and the bull sale is equally revered.
The Winnemucca Events Complex has 50 RV sites available with 30-amp service - http://www.ranchrodeonv.com/Camping.htm
ROCKY MOUNTAIN OYSTER FRY
A cooking competition may seem pretty ordinary. Awards in categories such as best taste, best presentation, and most creative dish are standard for such contests. But Virginia City doesn’t do ordinary or standard—case in point the Rocky Mountain Oyster Fry on Saturday, March 15. New York Times reporter Patricia Leigh Brown explained it as discreetly as I’ve ever seen in a 2009 feature about the event: “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.” I, on the other hand, was pointedly less discreet in a 2008 blog titled “Balls out in Virginia City!”
Whether subtle or in your face, the truth remains that this is an event centered around the cooking and eating of testicles. In the tradition of Food Network’s
“Iron Chef” and similar shows, professional and amateur chefs start with the same base ingredient (to reiterate, testicles), combine their unique brand of accompaniments and seasonings, and hope their balls are best.
While many of the chefs stick to the namesake and flatten and fry the dangly delicacies in a traditional sea-bourn oyster breading, I’ve seen them ground up for chili and curries; combined with breadcrumbs, corn, and peppers and rolled into ball meatballs; sautéed in a creamy French pinot grigio sauce; tempura battered; mixed with nachos; and, of course, wrapped in bacon and deep fried.
While a handful of people reading this are probably cringing at the thought of eating such meats, the 22-year-old event is hugely popular, and cojone connoisseurs arrive early and line up to get their share of gourmet gonads, proof that perhaps they aren’t as unappetizing as you might think. “Most people know what we’re cooking but a lot don’t,” says longtime competitor Brandi Lee in a 2012 KOLO8 (Reno’s ABC affiliate) story. “They taste it and like it…and then we tell them what’s in it!”
Published courtesy Nevada Magazine