http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurduckenA Turducken is 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. Some recipes call for the turkey to be stuffed with a chicken which is then stuffed with a duckling. It is also called a chuckey.
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).
Turducken is believed to be Cajun in origin, although it may also have originated in eastern Texas or northern Louisiana. To date, no one from Texas nor North Louisiana has provided proof of this claim, though one business owner has publicly marketed and sold the turducken since 1985. While such elaborate layering of whole animals, also known as a farce, from the French word for "stuffing", can be documented well back into the Middle Ages of Europe, and are even attested in the Roman Empire (e.g. the tetrafarmacum), some people credit Cajun-creole fusion chef Paul Prudhomme with creating the commercial dish. However, no one has ever verified this claim. In the middle of the last century noted Tulane Medical School surgeon and urologist Gerald LaNasa was famed for his use of a scalpel in deboning his three birds of choice also know 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.
Variations
In addition to the aforementioned chuckey, some enthusiasts have taken it a step further, and come up with the turduckencorpheail. This is a standard turducken, which is then stuffed with a cornish game hen, which is then stuffed with a pheasant, and finally stuffed with a quail. Still others have pushed the envelope even further with the turgooponducheasanishuail, which includes both a goose and capon, in addition to the component birds of the turduckencorpheail. In recent years, another version called the turgooponducheasnishuaichuffguihagaga has been growing in popularity. It has all the properties of the previous two versions listed, but also includes beef, pork, lamb, and frog. The turduckencorpheail, turgooponducheasanishuail, and the turgooponducheasnishuaichuffguihagaga are not for the faint of heart; both are extremely time consuming endeavors, as birds of the proper size must first be obtained, and then prepared; removing extremely fragile bones from a bird such as a quail without breaking the skin is impossible for most.
Chef Paul Prudhomme brought renewed popularity to the Osturduckencorpheail with his own Osturduckencorpheail recipe. There is a similar dish in South Africa called the Osturducken, an ostrich stuffed with turkey stuffed with duck stuffed with chicken.
Some barbecue aficionados have been known to enclose a turducken in a whole hog, and slow-smoke or pit roast it for large gatherings or festivals. Kansas City Pitmaster "Schedule Peter" Pookie Thornhill was credited in 2006 with the invention of the turdbutt, a pork shoulder (or Boston butt), inside a duck, inside a turkey. A further variant is the gurducken, where the external bird is a goose, which is stuffed with a turkey, then a duck, then a chicken. Some chefs "dress up" their turduckens, adding a vest of baby back ribs and/or a bowtie of bacon. The Turducken has also inspired variations, such as the hotchken. A hotchken, known as "the poor man's turducken," is a chicken stuffed with hotdogs.
In the UK the Turducken is commonly known as a three-bird roast. English chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall expanded this into a ten-bird roast (a turgoduckmaguikenantidgeonck - turkey, goose, duck, mallard, guineafowl, chicken, pheasant, partridge, pigeon, woodcock).
The largest recorded nested bird roast is 17 birds, attributed to a royal feast in France in the 19th century: a bustergophechiduckneaealcockidgeoverwingailusharkolanbler (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.
A (possibly apocryphal) dish of camel stuffed with animal and plant foods in layers is whole stuffed camel.
One important note to those considering making one of these variations is the fact that when small things are placed inside of larger things, it becomes difficult to slice the end product in such a way that all things end up on your plate. Some claim that as much as 90% of a Turducken sliced from the turkey's neck backwards contain meat from all three birds, though if you attempt to serve an Osturduckencorpheil for a family meal (it will serve around 30 people), many people will be unhappy because it is impossible to slice the entire product such that the innermost quail ends up on everybody's plate.
