"turducken" news and stories

• The Boston Globe Magazine turns Japanese, I really think so.
• Making takeout at home.
• An evening with The Bacon Club.
• Football players love pie.
• The Food Snob's Dictionary looks like fun.
• Mmmmmm...Cider Doughnuts.
• Turduken...in a can?
• How about a taste of New Zealand?
• This week's recipes: Almond-Stuffed Dates Wrapped in Bacon, Carrot Pate, Cauliflower with Tuna, Raisins, and Capers, and Orange-Scented Cranberry and Pecan Scones.

There is no doubt that America's Test Kitchen takes Thanksgiving seriously. Not only is it the biggest food holiday of the year, so they have a sort of professional obligation to at least mention it, but they decided to tackle the biggest of all Thanksgiving challenges: Turducken.

Ok, so they didn't make the Turducken - a Turkey stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a chicken - themselves, but they did test out several different suppliers, which is where most of us would turn if we wanted to put one of these creations on our holiday table. They ordered birds from Cajun Specialty Meats, Cajun Creations, and Cajun Grocer, then defrosted and roasted them. Unfortunately, none of the birds turned out well, as all required longer cooking time than indicated on the packaging and, consequently, ended up dry and flavorless. The ATK team also reported that the stuffings and overall presentation were disappointing in general. If you're willing to devote the 12-or-so hours needed to make the real thing, that is the only way to go if you want to serve one to friends and family. You can find a good how-to at Paul Prudhomme's site, as well as here .

The only thing more impressive than a turducken is stuffing even more birds into one giant one. But perhaps ATK will tackle that next year.

Source

As if eating Cadbury eggs, chocolate bunnies and marshmallow peeps in the same day wasn't excessive enough, a blog called Asteroid has a step-by-step guide to making a turducken-style creation that combines all three of these Easter sweets. It begins by making incisions in several peeps and stuffing mini Cadbury eggs inside. The newly fortified marshmallow critters are then stuffed into a hollow chocolate bunny whose base has been removed (above). The whole deal then gets sealed up again; chocolate welding is optional, apparently. Take that, giant Cadbury egg.

[Photo: Asteroid]

Turducken is a chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey and is becoming more and more popular at the holiday table. The layers are often rounded out with a hearty measure of stuffing, so it's not a roast for the faint of appetite. But what do you call an 18-pound turkey stuffed with 9 other birds? For now, it's simply called a ten bird roast or, as chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall proclaimed it,  "one of the most spectacular and delicious roasts you can lay before your loved ones at Yuletide".
Apparently, the roast has its roots in medieval traditions as well as in an early 19th century French tradition of having a feast with 17 kinds of birds. The turkey is stuffed with goose, duck, mallard, guinea fowl, chicken, pheasant, partridge, pigeon and woodcock (go-du-ma-gu-chi-phea-par-pige-ock?) and carries a £160 price tag (about $277). It, like the turducken, also contains a fair amount of sausage, bacon and stuffing. Another roast gaining popularity is the unfortunately named "gooducken" - a goose stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken.

Maybe it’s because I just happened to catch the 50 eggs scene from Cool Hand Luke on TV last night, but I figured I’d post a link to the IFOCE or International Federation Of Competitive Eating. Upon first visiting their site, I was drawn immediately to the records section. Interested in finding out how to become an IFOCE member or learning about their safety standards? That’s fine. Me? I just want to know the record for competitive mayonnaise eating. Oleg Zhornitskiy apparently ate four 32-ounce bowls (yes, bowls) of mayo in eight minutes. Oysters? Sonya Thomas, competitive eating’s “black widow” took down 46 dozen in 10 minutes. Ms. Thomas is credited with several other eating records, including taking down a nearly eight-pound turducken dinner in 12 minutes. It’s good to have a hobby.