Thanksgiving Myth #2: Turducken is a new dish
Part of our Thanksgiving Myths theme week
If you’ve ever watched an NFL Thanksgiving game in the late ’90s or early 2000s, you probably remember John Madden raving about one of the most talked-about holiday dishes of all time: the turducken. For many Americans, that was the moment this triple-poultry marvel burst onto the national stage. Because of that, it’s easy to assume turducken is a modern culinary invention—something dreamed up in the last few decades.
But that’s a myth.
A Louisiana Specialty With Deep Roots
Turducken—chicken stuffed inside duck stuffed inside turkey—has long been associated with Louisiana cooking. Traditionally, each bird is deboned and layered with various stuffings: sometimes a seasoned breadcrumb mixture, sometimes sausage, and sometimes a different stuffing for each bird. In other parts of the world, similar dishes exist under different names. In the U.K., the comparable version is a “three-bird roast,” and an English variant called gooducken swaps the turkey for goose.
But the idea behind turducken isn’t modern at all. The technique belongs to a very old culinary tradition called engastration, which involves stuffing one animal inside another (or in this case, two others). Recipes using this method date back centuries. A 1774 cookbook, The Art of Cookery, includes instructions for a “Yorkshire Christmas Pie” featuring pigeons, partridges, fowl, goose, and turkey layered together. In 1807, a jaw-dropping recipe for a “roast without equal” called for 17 different birds.
So Who Invented the Turducken We Know Today?
Credit for the modern turducken is most commonly given to Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme.
According to Prudhomme, he first created the dish in 1963 while working as a chef at resorts in Colorado and Wyoming. Years later, when he brought the recipe to New Orleans, he began selling turduckens commercially around 1982—so popular that he kept raising the price to slow demand because of the labor-intensive, day-long cooking process. In 1986, he even trademarked the name “Turducken.”
John Madden: The Turducken Superfan Who Made It Famous
While turducken was already beloved in Louisiana, its national fame can be traced to one enthusiastic fan: legendary NFL broadcaster John Madden.
Madden first encountered the dish in 1996, thanks to New Orleans radio personality Bob DelGiorno, during a Saints–Rams game at the Louisiana Superdome. It wasn’t even Thanksgiving—but Madden immediately fell in love, eating it with his hands on air, to everyone’s delight.
From then on, Madden made turducken a regular part of his Thanksgiving broadcasts, highlighting its layers, flavors, and sheer spectacle. His enthusiasm turned turducken from a regional specialty into a holiday sensation—so much so that the word turducken is now officially in the dictionary.
A Feast Fit for a Crowd
A full-sized turducken generally weighs 15 to 20 pounds and can pack over 12,000 calories, according to Men’s Health. Because of its dense layers, it demands patience: cooking often takes eight hours or more in a low-temperature oven. But for many Thanksgiving tables, the bragging rights alone make it worthwhile.
Turducken, But Make It Dessert
The turducken’s layered legacy has even inspired some creative dessert spinoffs. The most famous? The wonderfully absurd cherpumple—a towering fusion of cherry, pumpkin, and apple pies, each baked inside a different cake layer and then frosted together into one mega-dessert.
Invented in 2009 by humorist and chef Charles Phoenix, the cherpumple pays homage to family gatherings where everyone insists on “just a small slice of everything.” Building one can take up to three days, as each pie-cake layer must fully cool before assembly. But the result is a true showstopper.
Bottom line: While turducken feels like a modern culinary stunt, its roots stretch back centuries, and its rise to fame owes as much to medieval cooking traditions as it does to Paul Prudhomme—and to John Madden’s unmistakable enthusiasm.