The
Turducken StoryThe
Turducken Story
or, "Too Much Meat On Our Hands"
With Thanksgiving '02 coming up, the calls at Bill Kamp's Meat Market (BJW singer/theremin player John Manson's place of employment) were coming in fast and furious. One guy in particular called at least twice looking for a turducken. Manson had no idea what the guy was talking about, and the guy explained it was a Cajun delicacy of a chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey all interstuffed with stuffing. Manson had heard of something similar in English cuisine. Bill politely turned down the order, privately saying it would be too much of a pain in the ass. The guy had asked if he should look on the web, and Manson took the guy's cue and found about 3000 mentions and several outlets on Google. The guy called back again and said he had found a place in Tulsa that did them (doubtlessly Hebert's, a Cajun meat-stuffing joint), but still wanted to know if we could do anything for him. After saying no and hanging up, the seed had been planted. We were surrounded by sharp knives, turkeys, chickens and sausage. It was all so doable. Passing Bill behind the counter, Manson muttered, "Bill, you know we could do this..." and it was all on. Our turducken was a departure from the classic recipe in that it did not use bread stuffings, but different types of meat. Within the chicken was Manson's renowned French country pate, between the chicken and the duck was cured breakfast sausage and two links of mild smoked sausage running the length of the birds, and between the duck and the turkey was Kamp's famous ham loaf. Bill's ace knife skills made boning the three birds much less time consuming than expected. The stuffed, uncooked bird looked just like this:
The bird was oiled, rubbed with roasting spices, salt and pepper, and smoked and roasted at low temperature for 19 hours. At this point, the bird looked like this:
The bird was allowed to cool and set for two days before slicing. The cross-section looked like this:
Bill and John thought this was all cool as fuck, and wanted to keep the bird on display for the Thanksgiving weekend without selling it. The customers had other ideas. It was sold by the slice, and disappeared so quickly that John and Bill shall certainly make another one-when the mood strikes them.
EPILOGUE
Latish on the day before Thanksgiving, a pair of sports-bar looking fourty-somethings loitered a few minutes in front of the deli case, and one of them asked about the turducken. I explained it too him, and he somewhat briskly told me he had had turducken before. I pointed out the all-meat take on the recipe, and he haughtily told me it wasn't a "real turducken". Listen pal, being a Cajun food geek in the year 2002 is about as relevant as having the complete works of Michael Bolton. You want blackened rub and andouille cornbread stuffing, then bone and stuff it yourself or drive to Tulsa and buy one frozen in cryovac. Are you the guy who called 3 times asking us about one? Christ, I hope so...