How The Turducken Became Thanksgiving's Most Unhinged Dish

Despite Thanksgiving being one of the most conventional holidays in the U.S., there's a number of unusual customs many people take part in. From the once iconic flaming turkey toss in Indiana to the official pardoning of the Thanksgiving turkey at the White House — a practice that dates back to the 1800s — it's clear the holiday's odd traditions have taken on a life of their own. But when it comes to how the bird is prepared, one dish has become iconic for its especially peculiar name and recipe: the infamously weird turducken.

Although a turducken, aptly named for turkey, duck, and chicken, might look familiar on the outside because of its bird-like shape, this unhinged combination of poultry is anything but. A deboned turkey stuffed with a deboned duck stuffed with a deboned chicken has become a surprisingly popular Thanksgiving dish — and unlike Anthony Bourdain's "stunt turkey," this one is more delicious than it might look. Despite being somewhat fueled by shock value to post such a shocking combination on the internet, it might surprise you to find out that the turducken has actually been around, and enjoyed, longer than you might have thought. One chef actually claimed he invented the turducken all the way back in the 1960s, but there's another Thanksgiving tradition that helped the dish take on a life of its own — football. 

The exact origins of the turducken are unknown, but it is widely believed that late Louisiana chef Paul Prudhomme was the original inventor. He claimed to have come up with the poultry-packed hybrid while working at a carving station in Wyoming. According to The Times-Picayune, the turkey he was serving at the time looked a bit lackluster, so he decided to season and stuff it with two other birds to make it more appealing to customers. When he moved back to the Big Easy, he took this recipe with him, trademarking the name in 1986. Thereafter, he published the recipe in his cookbook and began to serve the dish at his New Orleans restaurant, K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen. Prudhomme's exact recipe for the Turducken can be found through his seasoning company's website, as it's still a popular go-to today.

Some argue that the reason the turducken became synonymous with Thanksgiving nationwide is thanks to none other than the late great football coach and commentator, John Madden. The annual broadcaster for the NFL's Thanksgiving Day games until retiring in 2009, Madden sampled his first triple-stuffed bird during a Rams-Saints game at the Super Dome in 1996 and never looked back. The turducken made such an impression on him that he provided a live bird-by-bird breakdown of it during his infamous Thanksgiving Day show. Every Thanksgiving after, Madden ate a customized turducken with six legs. Needless to say, that's when this bird really took flight.

In true American fashion, three birds in one is not enough for some. As the turducken gained popularity, fans of the dish have taken it as somewhat of a challenge to create even more unhinged Thanksgiving concoctions. Can you fathom 50 birds stuffed into 10 pigs? The creators of the TurBaconEpi-Centipede did (via YouTube). Epic Meal Time, a popular YouTube channel that takes on food extremes, is credited with this turducken-inspired mess that, thankfully, hasn't made its way onto Thanksgiving menus.

But there are some combinations that are more realistic, like the tof***en, a vegetarian-inspired take on the turducken with an incidentally foul name made by Granny PottyMouth on YouTube. The dish is an inception of four types of meat alternatives fit for dishes like a vegetarian shepherd's pie, such as tofurky and mock duck, all placed on a bed of cornbread stuffing and smothered in vegetarian gravy. So, needless to say, the turducken is a bit of a cultural fascination. Sure, you can cook up the regular, old, boring (but delicious) roasted turkey this year, but maybe first consider the rich history of this wacky favorite.