Hundreds have sampled an unusual and dare-say ballsy local delicacy this Thanksgiving in Illinois: deep-fried turkey testicles.

Firing up roughly 1,200 pounds of the turkey bits, crowds dined on the so-called 'hot nuts' outside the Parkside Pub in Huntley on Wednesday for their 30th annual Turkey Testicle Festival.

Appeasing annual crowds of roughly 4,000 eager eaters, it was 1,200 pounds and no more, as pub owner Jeff Lovell expressed to the Arlington Heights Daily Herald: 'It's not a food I want anything left over with.'

An all-day event held the day before Thanksgiving, it includes beer and live music while raising money for several charities, including area youth groups and the Huntley Jaycees.

Breading the inch to inch-and-a-half long parts in a secret recipe, which couldn't be perhaps anything more shocking than the meat, they're next deep fried for 15 minutes before becoming a kind of finger food.

'It is similar to cooking chicken,' Mr Lovell told the Northwest Herald. 'The biggest comparison we get is they [taste] like a deep fried mushroom. Anything breaded and deep fried can't be bad.'

He said the breaded morsels taste best with ranch dressing or Tabasco sauce, with it otherwise described as having little taste.