18 JANUARY 1992, Page 24

Fireballs

Sir: Denis Hills, reviewing Pamela Scott's account of settler life in Kenya (Books, 11 January), says that during cattle branding/castration 'a helping herdsman would sometimes put a severed testicle in the fire, then pop it into his mouth, and eat it'.

When I worked on a cattle ranch in Wyoming in the 1960s, the cowboys in the corral did the same. They called the delica- cy Rocky Mountain Oyster. Imperative, Digby Anderson.

Kate Mattock

Pale Cottage, Pyotts Hill, Old Basing, Hampshire