Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam. Here. At first glance, it
Speaker 1: seems almost like an sn L sketch or an onion article.
Speaker 1: A deboned chicken stuffed inside a deboned duck stuffed inside
Speaker 1: a de boned turkey? How can that possibly be real?
Speaker 1: Despite the sheer outrageousness of this dish, the turducan has
Speaker 1: been popular in the US for more than thirty years,
Speaker 1: mis transcendent novelty by cementing itself as the ultimate holiday
Speaker 1: meal for those who wanted all. But several questions remain.
Speaker 1: Who invented the turducan? How do you make this mega
Speaker 1: creature come to life? What does it taste like? And
Speaker 1: where do you even start when it comes to consuming
Speaker 1: this patroitch godll of meat. The origin of the turducan
Speaker 1: is shrouded in mystery. One supposed inventor of the turducan
Speaker 1: was the late Louisiana Cajun chef Paul Prutom. He trademarked
Speaker 1: the term turducan in n six and helped make this
Speaker 1: poultry trifecta go mainstream. Predomly Eater claimed not a phone
Speaker 1: call to New York Times writer Amanda Hesser in two
Speaker 1: thousand two that he was the one who first thought
Speaker 1: up this meat mountain. From has her story quote he
Speaker 1: insisted that to truly understand Turduccan, you need to bone
Speaker 1: all the birds and prepare three stuffings, one for each
Speaker 1: layer of meat, and cook the whole for twelve hours.
Speaker 1: And yes, purest though he is Mr Prudeholm would not
Speaker 1: reveal the name of the lodge in Wyoming where he
Speaker 1: says he came up with a dish, when exactly he
Speaker 1: created it, or even his age. However, another legend has
Speaker 1: it that the dish was first thought up by two
Speaker 1: brothers within the confines of a butcher's shop, a Bear's
Speaker 1: specialty meets in Maurice, Louisiana. Shop owners Junior and Sammy
Speaker 1: a Bear were approached by a local man who brought
Speaker 1: his quote birds to their shop and asked the brothers
Speaker 1: to create the medley today or Bears, which calls itself
Speaker 1: the home of the world famous Turducan can stuff as
Speaker 1: many as two hundred tur ducans in a day during
Speaker 1: the holidays. There are other stories too about its origin,
Speaker 1: but the idea of in gastration, that is stuffing the
Speaker 1: remains of one animal into another is nothing new. In
Speaker 1: the eighteenth and nineteen centuries in gastration was a sign
Speaker 1: of wealth in Europe, and it was Grimaud de la Regnier,
Speaker 1: one of the world's first food reviewers, who also published
Speaker 1: the world's first food journal, Almanac de Gourmand, who's credited
Speaker 1: with stuffing a bird within a bird In eighteen o seven,
Speaker 1: he included a recipe for the roast without Equal in
Speaker 1: his journal. It consisted of seventeen different birds, starting with
Speaker 1: a garden warbler and ending with a buzzard. There's no
Speaker 1: evidence he or anybody else ever prepared the dish, but
Speaker 1: it sure makes the turducan looked like chump change. Regardless
Speaker 1: of the turduccan's original creator, though it was a man
Speaker 1: not involved in the food scene, one football legend, John Madden,
Speaker 1: who popularized the turducan and brought it into the modern lexicon.
Speaker 1: Madden was introduced to the dish by way of Glenn
Speaker 1: and lab mystic Lea came from the family that owned
Speaker 1: a Bears and gave Madden a trducan during a nineteen
Speaker 1: nine seven game at the Superdome, a move that apparently
Speaker 1: changed Madden's life. Forever Madden began requesting a turduck in
Speaker 1: every Thanksgiving, the word tour ducan was added to the dictionary,
Speaker 1: giving this ambitious, albeit bizarre main dish a formal place
Speaker 1: in the world. So how do you make a turducan?
Speaker 1: To make a turn duck in from scratch, the first
Speaker 1: step is the hardest. You have to debone your birds.
Speaker 1: Your technical skill with deboning the duck and chicken don't
Speaker 1: matter as much, but the turkey will be a bit
Speaker 1: more intensive, as you'll want to keep the meat and
Speaker 1: skin mostly intact to create an attractive outer layer for serving.
Speaker 1: Once this is accomplished, you stack the deboned birds laying
Speaker 1: down first to the turkey, then the duck, then the chicken,
Speaker 1: all skin side down and all with a layer of
Speaker 1: stuffing spread between each. Then you roll the stack up
Speaker 1: with butcher's twine, and if you're feeling fancy, you can
Speaker 1: sew the seam up with a trussing needle and more twine,
Speaker 1: starting at the tail and finishing with the neck, so
Speaker 1: the turducan looks like a regular turkey. No, please note
Speaker 1: nothing regular is happening here. After seasoning the outside of
Speaker 1: the turducan as desired, Cajun or creoles. These things are common.
Speaker 1: You cook using your method of choice until the internal
Speaker 1: temperature reaches a hundred and sixty degrees fahrenheit that's seventy
Speaker 1: one degrees celsius. Unless you are well versed in bird
Speaker 1: butchering techniques, you might be better off buying a pre
Speaker 1: stuffed turduck in from your local supermarket or online. They're
Speaker 1: already debone, stuffed and ready to cook, which is great
Speaker 1: for anybody who doesn't have the capacity to debone three birds.
Speaker 1: But finally, the million dollar question, how does it taste?
Speaker 1: Because each meat holds a different and distinct flavor, the
Speaker 1: overall amalgamation of each foul put together makes for a
Speaker 1: wonderful and unusual taste. It's a savory gamy toward of
Speaker 1: force that tickles the palette, all while killing three birds
Speaker 1: with one stone. The tur ducan has become so ingrained
Speaker 1: in the American mindset that pringles. Yes. The Potato Chip
Speaker 1: Company recently offered up a tur Ducan friends giving feast
Speaker 1: that featured six flavors of chi, turkey, duck, and chicken
Speaker 1: flavored chips for you to stack, plus three side dish
Speaker 1: flavored chips cranberry sauce, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. They sold
Speaker 1: out in record time, but you can still find a
Speaker 1: few on eBay. Today's episode was written by Jeremy Glass
Speaker 1: and produced by Tyler clayg. Brain Stuff is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. From one, there's and
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