February 11, 2016 10:46 AM UTC

Mike Coffman Loves Him Some Testicles

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• by: Colorado Pols

Say what you will, but the headline above is 100% accurate.

Congressman Mike Coffman (R-Aurora) was recently interviewed by Alex Gangitano for Roll Call as part of a feature the newspaper calls “Take Five” — a quick Q&A with a Member of Congress featuring questions that aren’t intended to be hard hitting journalism. This actually happened:

Q: What is your favorite local Colorado food?

A: Rocky Mountain oysters, usually at a bar. It’s something we do back home; it’s kind of hard to explain. [Editor’s note: Rocky Mountain oysters are fried bull, pig or sheep testicles.]

Coffman isn’t really known for his sense of humor — in fact, it’s not clear that he actually has a sense of humor — and that’s what makes this answer even weirder. Coffman is the cliche robotic politician who is trying way too hard to pretend that he has a personality of his own.

Rocky Mountain Oysters are accurately called a “novelty dish” by Wikipedia, and while you can find them occasionally at restaurants in Colorado, they’re not really a Colorado food item (fried testicles are more commonly called “prairie oysters” in Canada or “prairie fries” in Texas).

More importantly, nobody actually eats Rocky Mountain Oysters on a regular basis. If you ever catch someone saying, “Boy, I could really go for a plate of fried testicles,” you can reasonably assume that you are the first person to have heard this sentence spoken out loud.

Which brings us to this clip from the 1988 movie Funny Farm, in which the character played by Chevy Chase unwittingly scarfs down plate after plate of “lamb fries.” Mike Coffman would have you believe that he does this on the regular: