Turducken

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30 lb. roasted Turducken

Sausage-stuffed Turducken cut into quarters to show the internal layers

A Turducken is a dish consisting of a partially de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed with a small de-boned chicken. The name is a portmanteau of those ingredients: turkey, duck, and chicken. The cavity of the chicken and the rest of the gaps are filled with, at the very least, a highly seasoned breadcrumb mixture or sausage meat, although some versions have a different stuffing for each bird.

The result is a relatively solid, albeit layered, piece of poultry, suitable for cooking by braising, roasting, grilling, or barbecuing. The turducken is not suitable for deep frying Cajun style (to deep fry poultry, the body cavity must be hollow to cook evenly).

Some people credit Cajun-creole fusion chef Paul Prudhomme with creating the commercial dish as part of the festival Duvall Days in Duvall, Wa in 1983. However, no one has ever verified this claim. In the middle of the last century, New Orleans surgeon and urologist Gerald LaNasa was known for his use of a scalpel in de-boning his three birds of choice also known as turduckhen. His efforts in preserving a Louisiana culinary tradition were noticed by emerging local chefs in New Orleans.

The November 2005 issue of National Geographic magazine in an article by Calvin Trillin traced the American origins of the dish to Maurice, Louisiana, and "Hebert's Specialty Meats", which has been commercially producing turduckens since 1985, when a local farmer whose name is unknown, brought in his own birds and asked Hebert's to prepare them in the now-familiar style. The company prepares around 5,000 turduckens per week around Thanksgiving time.^[1] They share a friendly rivalry with Paul Prudhomme.

Turducken is often associated with the "do-it-yourself" outdoor food culture also associated with barbecueing and shrimp boils, although some people now serve it in place of the traditional roasted turkey at the Thanksgiving meal. Turduckens can be prepared at home by anybody willing to learn how to remove the bones from poultry, instructions for which can be found on the Internet or in various cookbooks. As their popularity has spread from Louisiana to the rest of the Deep South and beyond, they are also available through some specialty stores in urban areas, or even by mail order.

1 Variations
2 In popular culture
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Variations

The largest recorded nested bird roast is 17 birds, attributed to a royal feast in France in the early 19th century (originally called a Rôti Sans Pareil, or "Roast without equal") - a bustard stuffed with a turkey, a goose, a pheasant, a chicken, a duck, a guinea fowl, a teal, a woodcock, a partridge, a plover, a lapwing, a quail, a thrush, a lark, an Ortolan Bunting and a Garden Warbler. The final bird is small enough that it can be stuffed with a single olive; it also suggests that, unlike modern multi-bird roasts, there was no stuffing or other packing placed in between the birds. This dish probably could not be recreated in the modern era as many of the listed birds are now protected species. [1] [2].

[edit] In popular culture

In a 2007 episode of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, Andrew Zimmern tried the turducken at "Hebert's Specialty Meats" and expressed enjoyment. In another instance on the October 18, 2007 episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart correspondent Aasif Mandvi commenting on the proposed invasion of Iraq by Turkey said that the three should form a new republic: the Kurds within Iraq, and Iraq within Turkey, call the new republic turduqen, pronounced the same as turducken.[3] In Season 4 of The Dead Zone (TV series) in the episode titled "A Very Dead Zone Christmas", Johnny takes out a turducken for Christmas dinner and Bruce calls it "Colonel Sanders meets Frankenstein" thing. The turducken is also mentioned on The Wendy Williams Experience during the Thanksgiving season. Wendy usually mentions it along with her restaurant/catering service of choice; 2 Fish, 5 Loaves. John Madden, now of NBC Sunday Night Football, often references the turducken around Thanksgiving time as it is his favorite dish over the regular traditional turkey. While working for Fox in the mid to late 1990's, Madden would show his own turducken on TV during the Thanksgiving football games.

In other media the turducken is mentioned such as Taylor Antrim's novel, The Headmaster Ritual (2007), one of the protagonists, James, and his mother order a turducken for Thanksgiving dinner. In the machinima fictional series, Red vs. Blue, Sarge explains to Private Dexter Grif and Church that the original designers of the turducken had "stopped short." Sarge goes on to describe his recipe for an expanded, deep fried version of the turducken involving, among other things, a hummingbird, two turkeys, a leopard, a pterodactyl, and a Boeing 747. The turducken is also frequently mentioned on The Ron & Fez Show on XM Satellite Radio and was the subject of a song written by show contributor Perrynoid in 2002.

Upon winning a Peabody award, Stephen Colbert said, "This is a really big deal. A Peabody is like an Oscar wrapped in an Emmy inside a Pulitzer. It's the Turducken of awards."