Consider the dish named with one of the greatest portmanteaus of all time: the turducken.
If you’ve never heard of turducken and you are a meat lover, prepare to rejoice. A turducken is a de-boned chicken (or hen) stuffed into a de-boned duck, which is then stuffed into a de-boned turkey.
Are three meats still sounding pedestrian? Well, try this on for size.
A gastronomist in the early 19th century wrote about his rôti sans pareil. This “roast without equal” is 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.
Since some of the ingredients are now considered endangered, you can’t exactly whip up this meat bonanza in your kitchen. (No need to disinvite the vegetarians yet.) But you get the point. The imagination is the limit to the number of meats that you could stuff into a ballotine.
This isn’t quite the same thing, but “turducken” reminds us of one of our other favorite animal hybrid words, zedonk. A zedonk, of course, is the product of a donkey and a zebra. What then is a liger, a zebrula, or a dzo? Find out here.
If you’ve got a little extra cash to spend, you could also go for the gooducken, which is a goose stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken.
Have any questions regarding Thanksgiving comestibles? Let us know. And what will be your main protein on the table Thursday night?
“The River Cottage” did a ten bird dish – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPwXsw_vzNU
That’s sad killing all those birds :’(
This turducken sounds cool but nasty.
I think i’ll ask for seconds after that decahedron of a feast. But thats just me.
I’m sorry, even a meat lover like me is a bit repulsed by the many birds used in the making of this dinner… X_X
blah bloo blahhhhhhhhhhh
try gibier for your thanksgiving, lets say lièvre for a change
I would avoid a raven by the way since it is more useful than consumption
That’s just… wow. If you could stuff any bacon/sausage/other pig PRODUCT (not the actual pig) in there I MIGHT try it. But it still sounds gross as hell. :0
Dislike Dislike Dislike.
Every Bird has its own taste though i’ve nt tried all of those but this mixture??? Big NO!!!
Sweet Lord above, I love meat and would have lost the meat in my stomach if I read this while or after eating some! I…I…I, duh…guhhh…….
MAKE IT DIDN’T HAPPEN, make it didn’t happen DX
thats a lotta birds o.o
Eating all those birds together sounds disgusting! I’ll just stick with plain chicken, thank you very much!
ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Ok thats a weird combination that i am not going to try
I just good with the turkey. It is funny to think about it: How exactly do they get each bird to fit? Then that’s when it sounds gross
I hate to be the guy who gets all the birds! I know he must be hungry after wards. I wonder if anyone choked on a bone?
sure it taste good!! A great dish for Christmas too!! (:
I still couldn’t eat anything with ‘turd’ in the name…
where’s the ostrich
YEAH!!! like where is the ostrich?
I’m blown away that there is a single soul alive, much less with an *internet connection* that still hasn’t heard of turducken. It’s been all over the cooking shows for the last decade! Put down the club and get out of your cave.
Actually… we are having one this Thanksgiving! And yes, it does have sausage stuffing inside. Honestly, I’m stoked to try this $100 feast. All those meats are delicious on their own- imagine them together! Mmmm…
I’d prefer one bird at a time.
I don’t think so. Chicken yes, turducken No!
I see. So a turducken is a de-boned chicken stuffed into a de-boned duck, which is then stuffed into a de-boned turkey, which is then stuffed into a non-de-boned human.
I THINK BETTER TAKE your suggestion to have gooducken for this year (2010). Much better do not cook the goose, duck, and chicken, but roast it all. The next step is to dress it up with fruits and vegetables for balance diet menu.
THE SELECTED fruits and vegetables must contain high anti-oxidant value to enjoy for both; excitement and healthy. Everything must be started from the beginning point of preparation, the following processes, and up to the end.
THAT SOUNDS REALY REALY GREAT BUT THINK ABOUT PEOPLE THAT DOES NOT HAVE ANYTHING IN THERE STOMACS,
BEFORE YOU STUFF YOUR FACES WITH ALL THAT BIRDS..OR DOES PEOPLE NOT CARE ANYMORE…
Pfft bustard, that’s hilarious.
hahah. @ Cyberquill
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a Tur-key.
wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!
cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!
Try adding a Penguin in the mix!!!
MAN! That made me HUNGRY!!!! I’m going to have to try a few of these dishes, they just sound to darn good not to.
I think I’ll have the steak.
That’s a great point… Where IS the Ostrich??!? JUST THINK of all the animals you could fit inside of an ostrich!
Turducken… sounds like… “Hadouken!!!”
Would be a good special move on Street Fighter – Ryu throws a turkey stuffed with duck stuffed with chicken. TURDUKEN!!!
Ever had a jellyfish sandwich?
This is vile. Couldn’t Dictionary.com offer something a little more instructive and less disrespectful of our animal friends?
Say no to fowl play, go vegan.
its like mad bird diasese, only not mad bird diasese
Holy Christ.
i mean, with 10 birds. How big would the dish actually be?
i thank this picture made me felt frightening
[...] — Everything changes for good or profit motive — but we’ve never eaten “TURDUCKEN”. –>>Rupert [...]
Thats sounds tasty!!! May have to try that!!
i’m still waiting for the codeeroatig thats a pig stuffed into a goat stuffed into a deer stuffed into a cow. mmmmmmmmmm…tasty
This is the manliest meal ever. Not only are you eating a pile of cute defenseless animals, but your pile of cute defenseless animals also are eating a pile of cute defenseless animals.
non-de-boned…….lol
Made turducken for the first time last year. Amazing. Not a vegetarian in the family, though. Doing it again this year. Youtube has videos on deboning, so it’s not even that difficult. Worth the effort and a surprise for everyone. It looks exactly like a whole roasted turkey when it comes and of the oven, and then it’s a fun surprise when you carve.
Love my meats but the rôti sans pareil is ridiculous….. Let’s figure out more obnoxious ways to be cruel to nature shall we?!…(Wonder why these animals are extinct)
that is so sad:(
It all sounds AWESOME!!
its actually kind of good!!!
Thanks for the laughs . . . got my morning off to a great start . . . BTW, I’m w/the o.O crowd on this one! Heard of it, saw it on a cooking show and was morbidly fascinated, but not drooling at all! Happy Thanksgiving to all!
eew thats kinda gross and i would just eat a regular turkey
how do they fit that in there
I’ve never had duck… but despite my mild hatred of meat, I think I’d try this…
i mean phat phat okkk
Good ol’ fashion cooking!
that’s crazy. I’ve heard of the turducken but I’ve never heard of the rôti sans pareil. Not sure if it’d be any good though. I guess I’d be willing to give it a try but still interesting stuff.
im something yrs old hahahahaha
aha .
turYUKen!!
blarghy! I looked up all the birds I wasn’t already familiar with, and zomg those poor little birdies!
Most of them can fit in your hand! D: what a crime against cuteness!…oh and animals…yeah…O.o;
The two most interesting turkey variations I’ve heard of are:
1) my vegetarian friends’ “Tofurkey” yes that’s right, a turkey shaped tofu mold and it is a real thing.
2) the “Turturkeykey” which, apparently, is a smaller turkey stuffed inside a larger turkey. As seen in last night’s episode of How I Met Your Mother. So far as I know this is not a real recipe, but who knows, perhaps there is an adventurous chef out there…
If I ate that, I’ll would’ve died and gone to meat lovers paradise resting on 72 oz steak with a hamburger as my pillow and a slice of ham for my blanket.
this gives new meaning to giving someone the bird…
i think turducken is pretty spiff, yet i don’t think i would waste that much money on a dinner when i can spread out the meats and use them for ocassional dinners
How do they debone all of them?! Kind of defeats the purpose of turkey legs doesn’t it? I’d rather eat the turducken than the other one. I think with all that meat, you’d have leftovers for months! Don’t see too many recipes out there for leftover turducken, do you?
Wow. I have actually read about something similar to this in a book. To be able to do it you would have to have quite a bit of knowledge as to how to season them. Chicken is pretty much a wild card, it is good with most seasonings, but the same cannot be said of turkey or duck. Wow.
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
Never heard of that!-_-
I’ve had a Turducken. The duck meat makes the whole thing worth while…I am actually cooking one for our bountiful feast this week! My father used to stuff a pig into a wildboar that was stuffed into a cow. He called it a Copiboar. It was AWESOME!
The first time I heard of a Turducken was with this informative YouTube video. I’m sure it will give some people here some great recipe ideas to try out for this Thanksgiving!
this is really awesome
where can one get this turducken today.
I do love meat but this i just plain nasty,if i had that it would probably put me off having any kind of meal for a long time.
@ Mark V.
Pfft, even I know that the “manliest meal ever” is an irukandji jellyfish stuffed inside a live, PCP-addled wolverine stuffed inside an albino alpha male silverback gorilla stuffed inside a hand-strangled water buffalo stuffed inside a Jurassic kodiac bear drowned in rye whiskey.
Sheesh, don’t they give you guys some kind of handbook or something?
~Saf
How can you debone something and still have enough form to it to stuff something else inside it? The article implied that it was pedestrian. If pedestrian is lacking any imagination or vitality, this sounds exactly the opposite. I would never have had the imagination to stuff one animal in another. It would seem to me, with all of the different animals stuffed into each other that there would be too much vitality.
Completely overrated. My family bought several different varieties over a few years of thanksgiving. At first it was a novelty, but its certainly not worth the price tag. The “stuffing” is bland, and when all the birds cook together like that, you cannot differentiate between the different meats. I suppose the upside was that carving was made easier by there not being any bones… however, it was tough to get all 3 types of meat in one cut… nay, impossible.
the turkey stuffed, with different kind of meats in latinoamerica is called pavo relleno it is cooked for chrismas is stuffed with duck chicken pork etc. unfotunally not every body can have such delicacy in his table. thanks
anyone here im new <;] hey i have a party hat on
couldent read all of it cause it just saaid the plain nasty eeww
Turducken is a favorite in Louisiana. We enjoy them at least once a year. Along with the 3 meats it is usually packed with rice dressing and the entire thing weighs about 18 lbs. so its not too big for a large gathering.
I AM AMAAAAZED!!!!!!
After all these comments I’m not sure if I want to eat one. This whole turduken thing WAS sounging tasty until I thought of an Australian version. Just think about it. Ostrich(I’m adding ostrich even if it’s not native) the emu, than koala, than duck then rabbit, than kiwi.
I don’t know. It might be worth a shot.
So, the dish we’re talking about of 10-plus-fowl-and-fowler, was called, a– ‘Busturgoopheachiducguinteawoodcoparplolapwiquaithrularbunwarbler’?
(Or…perhaps we should use their zoological-Latin names…?)
But how does one slice it–? Or does each guest get a whole-one?
I agree he could have served a larger audience with moa, ostrich, rhea, condor … down to … hummingbird … But there’s a smaller, something I’d-read-of-somewhere, the size of a little-finger-last-joint….
(Or maybe he did– The moa went extinct at the end, of the 19th Cent.)
Reminds one of a Russian shell-doll…but edible….
It’s like the food chain all over again…. One expects this of fish.
Now if he just had a way to alternately bake and chill each layer like a Baked Alaska…
no…thats just no…
ill stick with mac ‘n’ cheese…
ugh, thats disgusting…ive eaten a pigeon before tho…it was actually pretty good…but still, no
this reminds me of that website where they were asking how leprechauns taste like, it was retarded lol
yea, im with the O.o guys
ew…ugh, i need to barf
BARUUUP!
How did you know what I was eating?
Now I’m going to saute me a big plate of chicken livers!
Sorry nothing left Omar.
I WOULD JUST AS SOON EAT A WADER, STUFFED WITH A GULOSH, STUFFED WITH A BOOT, STUFFED WITH A JOGGER, STUFFED WITH AN OXFORD, STUFFED WITH A SLIPPER STUFFED WITH A SANDEL, STUFFED WITH A SOCK, SANS FOOT, IN A HEARTY BEER/WINE/GARLIC SAUCE. NUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMY
we like it
I’m not a big meat-eater, and when my sister-in-law served her home-made turducken for (Canadian) Thanksgiving, I was very hesitant to try it, but didn’t want to be rude, so I ate it. Man, it was the best bird I’d ever had. Her sweet potato souffle was wonderful, her home-grown brussel sprouts excellent….everything was amazing. I agree it’s over-kill to eat 3 birds at one meal, but it was really quite something.
nice,we like it so mych..thanks
yeah,you are right
wo! this topic i like !!!
pretty girls have problems too you know
These are almost otherworldly dishes. I for one am not quite sure if they were conceived out of genuine desire for delectable meals, or a classic game of one-upmanship in which one has to come up with the most outrageous and expensive thing to serve at a dinner table. Ah, well…
It’s cruel enough eating one bird, but stuffing birds inside other birds is a revolting idea.
Much easier if the birds devoured one another in the proper sequence — crapping out a feather duster,of course.
Turdukens are quite good, and we had a Cajun-seasoned turduken last year that was especially good.
I helped fix this yesterday and had it for the first time today…and it was the first time I’ve had duck…it was good and the duck ok, but my favorite dish by far is still the sweet potatos with brown sugar and marshmallows…wow, those were the best I’ve ever had! Our turkey was 22lbs alone so we have a bunch of leftovers. That other meal deal sounds a bit much to me…I would skip it.
abby, goodlooking guys have problems as well…..
I’ve heard of a dish called cherpumple. It is a cherry, pumpkin, and apple pie. I’d like to try it, but I’d have to bring someone with me to finish the rest of the pie, because I don’t like cherry of pumpkin pie.
How about all those stuffed birds,stuffed on a de-boned pterodactyl..Sounds good, right?
the list can go on till you roast an elephant with whole jungle inside it… ! ![]()
come on ! go veggi at least that has some benefits
oh, sounds gross. but i guess i’m gonna eat a lot of it if it’s cooked by my beb.
my beb cooks well. and i love it as much as i hate it.
uh. i’m missing him already.
laki titi: whoah?
Wow…. I like it! I’ve tried lots of weird dishes in my lifetime…. I wouldn’t mind trying this is as well… Muahahahahaha!! YUM!



Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But poor birdies…….
I think I’d be stuffed after that rôti sans pareil!