{"id":4042,"date":"2009-11-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=4042"},"modified":"2014-01-24T17:10:24","modified_gmt":"2014-01-25T01:10:24","slug":"how-much-duck-could-a-turkey-chuck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=4042","title":{"rendered":"How much duck could a turkey chuck?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Turducken<\/a>

Turducken (via wikipedia)<\/p><\/div>\n

I giggle every time I hear the word “Turducken<\/a>.” I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s the first four letters, or the “duck” (literally) in the middle, but Turducken references abound this time of year and I can’t help but chuckle every time I hear or read the word.<\/p>\n

I’ve never even tasted Turducken, though I have tried Tofurky<\/a>, and Turducken has got to be better than that. It’s certainly funnier, and not at all self-righteous. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder about the origins of this Thanksgiving delicacy, so I decided to do some research.<\/p>\n

Turducken, for those of you that haven’t heard about this, is what you get when you take a chicken and stuff it inside of a duck, then you take that ducken and stuff it inside of a turkey.<\/p>\n

In my head, I keep hearing Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof <\/em><\/a>singing “Turducken, Turducken. Turducken!”<\/p>\n

According to a 2002 New York Times story<\/em> by Amanda Hesser, turkey found his inner duck (and chicken), “Once upon a time, possibly at a lodge in Wyoming, possibly at a butcher shop in Maurice, Louisiana, or maybe even at a plantation in South Carolina.” She wrote that “an enterprising cook decided to take a boned chicken, a boned duck and a boned turkey, stuff them one inside the other like Russian dolls, and roast them. He called his masterpiece Turducken.”<\/p>\n

I guess chickdurkey and duchicky were already taken.<\/p>\n

Of course these scenarios are certainly possible, as are the unsubstantiated claims that Cajun-Creole fusion chef Paul Prudhomme created the Turducken. But here’s the thing: all of these Turducken theories revolve around the idea that a man was the one who created the Turducken. I for one have never, in my 40-something year history of Thanksgiving celebrations, seen a man willingly move more than four feet away from any TV screening football games on Thanksgiving Day.<\/p>\n

Therefore, it seems completely logical to me that a woman must have invented the Turducken.<\/p>\n

Here’s my theory. You probably know the tune.<\/p>\n

I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Turducken (with apologies to anyone who can carry a tune or make a rhyme)<\/p>\n

I know an old lady who swallowed a Turducken<\/p>\n

I don’t know what kind of booze she was chuckin<\/p>\n

She first bought a chicken<\/p>\n

It seemed finger licken<\/p>\n

But then in walked Chuck<\/p>\n

He’d picked up a duck<\/p>\n

The old lady sighed<\/p>\n

With no room in the freezer<\/p>\n

She’d have to cook both, to please the old geezer<\/p>\n

She consulted Giada and Martha, her coven<\/p>\n

They both told her simply to turn on the oven<\/p>\n

She swallowed some wine, then swallowed some beer<\/p>\n

What she did at this point isn’t perfectly clear<\/p>\n

But then Rita showed up at the door with a turkey<\/p>\n

The old lady took it; she didn’t want to be jerky<\/p>\n

The oven then beeped it was ready to cook<\/p>\n

How could the old lady get off the hook?<\/p>\n

There was no way to fit three birds in her range<\/p>\n

She had an idea, although it was strange<\/p>\n

She’d seen a commercial a time long ago<\/p>\n

Where peanut butter and chocolate did a Do-Se-Do<\/p>\n

If Reese’s can do it then so can I<\/p>\n

She gulped her martini and let out a sigh<\/p>\n

Perhaps I’ll try.<\/p>\n

And there you have the real explanation for how the Turducken came to be. Happy Thanksgiving!<\/p>\n

If you’ve got a better explanation for this culinary oddity, email Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com.\u00a0Originally published in the\u00a0Santa Barbara Daily Sound\u00a0<\/a>on November 20, 2009.<\/h6>\n

Share this:<\/h3>