A turducken is a dish consisting of a de-boned chicken stuffed into a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed into a de-boned turkey. The word turducken is a portmanteau of turkey, duck, and chicken or hen. The dish is a form of engastration, a recipe method in which one animal is stuffed inside the gastric passage of another.[1]
The thoracic cavity of the chicken/game hen and the rest of the gaps are stuffed, sometimes with a highly seasoned breadcrumb mixture or sausage meat, although some versions have a different stuffing for each bird. The result is a fairly solid layered poultry dish, suitable for cooking by braising, roasting, grilling, or barbecuing.
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Roasts of nested birds or other animals have been documented for centuries. The Yorkshire Christmas pie, an English dish served in the 18th century, consists of five different birds either layered or nested, and baked in a standing crust.[2][3][4] The pie was normally produced only by the wealthy.[3]
In his 1807 Almanach des Gourmands, gastronomist Grimod de La Reynière presents his rôti sans pareil ("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—although he states that, since similar roasts were produced by ancient Romans, the rôti sans pareil was not entirely novel.[5][6][7] The final bird is very small but large enough to hold just an olive; it also suggests that, unlike modern multi-bird roasts, there was no stuffing or other packing placed in between the birds. Some of the birds used are endangered today.[8]
A November 2005 National Geographic article by Calvin Trillin traced the American origins of the dish to "Hebert's Specialty Meats" in Maurice, Louisiana, although readers immediately noted that the concept for the dish itself is centuries old. Hebert's has been commercially producing turduckens since 1985, when an unknown local farmer brought in his own birds and asked Hebert's to prepare them in that manner. The company prepares around 5,000 turduckens per week around Thanksgiving time.[9]
American football commentator John Madden popularized turducken during a football game broadcast. While announcing for CBS Sports he displayed a turducken and began carving it. He promoted it again on Fox Sports by awarding a turducken to players on the winning team of the Thanksgiving Bowl. On the November 9, 2008 broadcast of NBC Sunday Night Football, Madden responded to a fan's sign reading "JOHN MADDEN, BRING BACK TURDUCKEN" by calling his fixation with turducken "a thing of the past," stating that he would return to a traditional turkey for subsequent Thanksgivings.[10]
In the United Kingdom, a turducken is a type of ballotine called a "three-bird roast" or a "royal roast".[11][12] The Pure Meat Company offered a five-bird roast (a goose, a turkey, a chicken, a pheasant, and a pigeon, stuffed with sausage), described as a modern revival of the traditional Yorkshire Christmas pie, in 1989;[13][14] and a three-bird roast (a duck stuffed with chicken stuffed with a pigeon, with sage and apple stuffing) in 1990.[13][14] Multi-bird roasts are widely available.
Gooducken is a goose stuffed with a duck, which is in turn stuffed with a chicken.[15]
An early form of the recipe was Pandora's cushion in which a Goose was stuffed with a Chicken which was stuffed with a Quail. [16]