How Did Turducken Become a Thing?

A chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey. Yep. Learn the history of the turducken and what it takes to prepare one in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam. Here. At first glance, it
seems almost like an sn L sketch or an onion article.
A deboned chicken stuffed inside a deboned duck stuffed inside
a de boned turkey? How can that possibly be real?
Despite the sheer outrageousness of this dish, the turducan has

(00:24):
been popular in the US for more than thirty years,
mis transcendent novelty by cementing itself as the ultimate holiday
meal for those who wanted all. But several questions remain.
Who invented the turducan? How do you make this mega
creature come to life? What does it taste like? And
where do you even start when it comes to consuming
this patroitch godll of meat. The origin of the turducan

(00:47):
is shrouded in mystery. One supposed inventor of the turducan
was the late Louisiana Cajun chef Paul Prutom. He trademarked
the term turducan in n six and helped make this
poultry trifecta go mainstream. Predomly Eater claimed not a phone
call to New York Times writer Amanda Hesser in two
thousand two that he was the one who first thought
up this meat mountain. From has her story quote he

(01:10):
insisted that to truly understand Turduccan, you need to bone
all the birds and prepare three stuffings, one for each
layer of meat, and cook the whole for twelve hours.
And yes, purest though he is Mr Prudeholm would not
reveal the name of the lodge in Wyoming where he
says he came up with a dish, when exactly he
created it, or even his age. However, another legend has

(01:31):
it that the dish was first thought up by two
brothers within the confines of a butcher's shop, a Bear's
specialty meets in Maurice, Louisiana. Shop owners Junior and Sammy
a Bear were approached by a local man who brought
his quote birds to their shop and asked the brothers
to create the medley today or Bears, which calls itself
the home of the world famous Turducan can stuff as
many as two hundred tur ducans in a day during

(01:53):
the holidays. There are other stories too about its origin,
but the idea of in gastration, that is stuffing the
remains of one animal into another is nothing new. In
the eighteenth and nineteen centuries in gastration was a sign
of wealth in Europe, and it was Grimaud de la Regnier,
one of the world's first food reviewers, who also published
the world's first food journal, Almanac de Gourmand, who's credited

(02:16):
with stuffing a bird within a bird In eighteen o seven,
he included a recipe for the roast without Equal in
his journal. It consisted of seventeen different birds, starting with
a garden warbler and ending with a buzzard. There's no
evidence he or anybody else ever prepared the dish, but
it sure makes the turducan looked like chump change. Regardless

(02:38):
of the turduccan's original creator, though it was a man
not involved in the food scene, one football legend, John Madden,
who popularized the turducan and brought it into the modern lexicon.
Madden was introduced to the dish by way of Glenn
and lab mystic Lea came from the family that owned
a Bears and gave Madden a trducan during a nineteen
nine seven game at the Superdome, a move that apparently

(02:59):
changed Madden's life. Forever Madden began requesting a turduck in
every Thanksgiving, the word tour ducan was added to the dictionary,
giving this ambitious, albeit bizarre main dish a formal place
in the world. So how do you make a turducan?
To make a turn duck in from scratch, the first
step is the hardest. You have to debone your birds.

(03:22):
Your technical skill with deboning the duck and chicken don't
matter as much, but the turkey will be a bit
more intensive, as you'll want to keep the meat and
skin mostly intact to create an attractive outer layer for serving.
Once this is accomplished, you stack the deboned birds laying
down first to the turkey, then the duck, then the chicken,
all skin side down and all with a layer of

(03:42):
stuffing spread between each. Then you roll the stack up
with butcher's twine, and if you're feeling fancy, you can
sew the seam up with a trussing needle and more twine,
starting at the tail and finishing with the neck, so
the turducan looks like a regular turkey. No, please note
nothing regular is happening here. After seasoning the outside of

(04:02):
the turducan as desired, Cajun or creoles. These things are common.
You cook using your method of choice until the internal
temperature reaches a hundred and sixty degrees fahrenheit that's seventy
one degrees celsius. Unless you are well versed in bird
butchering techniques, you might be better off buying a pre
stuffed turduck in from your local supermarket or online. They're
already debone, stuffed and ready to cook, which is great

(04:25):
for anybody who doesn't have the capacity to debone three birds.
But finally, the million dollar question, how does it taste?
Because each meat holds a different and distinct flavor, the
overall amalgamation of each foul put together makes for a
wonderful and unusual taste. It's a savory gamy toward of
force that tickles the palette, all while killing three birds

(04:47):
with one stone. The tur ducan has become so ingrained
in the American mindset that pringles. Yes. The Potato Chip
Company recently offered up a tur Ducan friends giving feast
that featured six flavors of chi, turkey, duck, and chicken
flavored chips for you to stack, plus three side dish
flavored chips cranberry sauce, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. They sold

(05:09):
out in record time, but you can still find a
few on eBay. Today's episode was written by Jeremy Glass
and produced by Tyler clayg. Brain Stuff is a production
of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. From one, there's and
lots of other topics. Within topics, visit our home planet,
how stuff Works dot com, and for more podcast from
my heart Radio, visit i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

(05:32):
or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.