turducken

English edit

WOTD – 28 November 2019

Etymology edit

A roasted turducken

A sliced, sausage-stuffed turducken

Blend of tur(key) +‎ duck +‎ (chick)en.^[1]

Pronunciation edit

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /tɜːˈdʌk(ə)n/
- Audio (Southern England) (file)
(General American) IPA^(key): /ˌtɝˈdʌk(ə)n/
Rhymes: -ʌkən
Hyphenation: tur‧duck‧en

Noun edit

turducken (countable and uncountable, plural turduckens)

(US, cooking) A dish, usually roasted, consisting of a deboned turkey stuffed with a deboned duck that has been stuffed with a small deboned chicken, and also containing stuffing.
Synonym: chuckey
- 1982 November 29, Charles Michener, Linda R. Prout, “Glorious Food: The New American Cooking”, in Newsweek, volume 100, New York, N.Y.: Newsweek, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 92, column 2:
  The main attraction at dinner this week is called "turducken." To make it, [Paul] Prudhomme stuffs a boneless chicken with a reddish sausage stuffing; the stuffed chicken is then stuffed into a boneless duck with cornbread stuffing; finally, the chicken and the duck are stuffed into boneless turkey with greenish oyster stuffing. When sliced, you have three birds and a rainbow of stuffings.
  This is believed to be the first appearance of the word in print.
- 1999, Meat and Poultry, volume 45, Mill Valley, Calif.: Oman Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 26:
  Turducken is a true niche item; a product that has its roots firmly established in Cajun country and is growing in popularity [...] Skip Shensky, managing partner of the All Cajun Food Co., says his company sold 1,500 turduckens this year. […] Broussard’s experience with the product is a little different. He and his brother grew up eating turducken.
- 2000, Vogue, page 134:
  Although I may never eat turducken [“Birds of […]
- 2003 January 4, Jim Kershner, “Happy Turducken Day”, in The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.: Cowles Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC; republished in Shaun O’L. Higgins, editor, Mountain Goats are My Weakness: And Other Tales of Life in the Northwest (A Spokesman-Review Book), Spokane, Wash.: New Media Ventures, 2004, →ISBN, page 46:
  Now, I will admit that when it came time to lay knife on turducken, with everybody gathered around in avid anticipation, the result was horrifying. Instead of freeing a beautiful slice of marbled meat, my knife unleashed a steaming avalanche of something brown and granular onto the platter.
- 2008, S. A. Bodeen, The Compound, Square Fish, published 2009, →ISBN, pages 103–104:
  In his black Armani tuxedo, Dad set the first slice of turducken on one of the expensive china plates in a tall stack beside him and held it up.
- 2009, Rebecca Wolff, editor, A Best of Fence: Fiction & Nonfiction, Fence Books, →ISBN, page 385:
  We eat turducken: a duck stuffed inside a chicken stuffed inside a turkey. The whole thing deep fat fried.
- 2009, Jennifer Weber, Run Lil Jared:
  LET’S EAT TURDUCKEN! Uh … Let’s not. It’s stuffed with a chicken … it’s stuffed with a duck …
- 2012 November 16, Sean [Michael] Carroll, “Talk of the Nation: Searching for ‘The Particle at the End of the Universe’”, in NPR‎^[1], archived from the original on 17 April 2014:
  RICARDO: [...] And is it the final stage of understanding what black matter and dark energy is that holds our turkey together for Thanksgiving, for instance? / CARROLL: That's – it's a great point because we live in a turducken universe. There's all sorts of different ingredients that are involved in the list of what goes into the cosmos we observe. There's dark energy. There's dark matter. There's ordinary matter. The Higgs boson is the final piece of the ordinary matter puzzle.
- 2012 November 18, Lizzie Molyneux, Wendy Molyneux, “An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal”, in Bob’s Burgers, season 3, episode 5:
  Bob: Listen, I figured out how to have our own Thanksgiving, stuffed inside Fischoeder's Thanksgiving, like a turducken. / Gene: A poultry within a poultry. It's like Inception with meat.
- 2014 November, Megan Amram, “Paula Deen’s Health-food Cookbook”, in Science… for Her!, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, →ISBN, page 35, column 2:
  PAULA'S GUILT-FREE® TURTURTURDUCKDUCKENDUCKEN [...] DIRECTIONS: Stuff a turducken in a turducken in a turducken.
- 2016, John C. Havens, Heartificial Intelligence: Embracing Our Humanity to Maximize Machines, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, →ISBN:
  While straining to wedge a fresh slice of turducken into your gaping maw you choke to death on a stray bone and the irony of your untimely demise.
- 2020, Julia Fowler, Embrace Your Southern, Sugar!, Gibbs Smith, →ISBN:
  Can’t decide? Then eat turducken. That’s a chicken stuffed into a duck stuffed into a turkey.
- 2020, Kelli Wilhelm, ““Where’s the pie?” Nostalgic and Apocalyptic Foodways in Supernatural”, in Lisa Macklem, Dominick Grace, editors, Supernatural Out of the Box: Essays on the Metatextuality of the Series, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc., →ISBN, part three (“Our lives are not for public consumption”), page 115:
  Significantly, the explanation of the TDK’s true purpose is provided while the man stands above a test room containing an American family: mother, father, and son are each obese, and they sit on a couch staring at a television screen and eating turducken sandwiches.