Attack of the Giant Mutant Barnyard Fowl

I have to say, thankfulness was not my first emotion when Mom informed me she’d ordered a turducken for me to cook for her sixtieth birthday celebration. I have difficulties eating, handling, and even thinking about meat. No one understands this, least of all me.

A chicken stuffed inside a duck that is stuffed inside a turkey sounded like a monster from a horror film in my opinion. I pictured a giant, featherless mutant bird stomping down a deserted city street, flapping its naked wings while I desperately tried to get away. Needless to say, I had more than one nightmare about the whole thing.

When the turducken arrived last Friday, it looked innocuous enough in a vacuum-sealed cooler plopped on my doorstep by the FedEx guy. I was all for leaving it in the neat packaging, but since I was supposed to cook it the next day, I knew I’d have to lift the sarcophagus lid and remove and defrost the mummy within.

Having cooked a Thanksgiving turkey before, I knew what I might be facing: raw, yellowish skin, that horrible, gaping cavity, the disgusting stuff they put back in the cavity, maybe a feather or two.

Excuse me, I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Ok, back to the turducken. It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as a turkey. You see, turduckens come already assembled. I assume the folks who do this are pitiable inhabitants of a mental institution. After all, if you told me I had to stuff a chicken inside a duck then stuff that duck inside a turkey, I’d kill you and then plead insanity.

Thankfully, the only drastic measure necessary for our turducken was an extra-long ice water bath. The next day, Mom’s birthday, all I had to do was unwrap the thing, put it in a roasting pan, and stick it in the oven.

Here’s proof that I did it.


It came out so well, I didn’t even have time for a picture of the finished product before it was eaten. A few of Mom’s birthday guests volunteered to let me take a picture of their full tummies, but I told them that was just weird.

We had a wonderful celebration but never managed to agree on exactly how the chicken came to be inside a duck that ended up in a turkey. Here are a few of our theories:

1. Time-travel
2. Alien abduction
3. Genetic engineering
4. “Beam me up, Scottie” gone terribly wrong
5. Splinching, similar to #4 but with a Harry Potter twist. After all, if Ron Weasley can’t apparate, then how can we expect dim-witted barnyard fowl to do it?
6. “A turkey, a duck, and a chicken walk into a bar…”

If you have any ideas of your own, please share. Let’s remember to keep it PG, shall we?

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!