It's ridiculous - a chicken, inside a duck, inside a turkey, all boneless, and in this case, stuffed with sausage. Tarbucket, turdbucken - I'm sure all the nicknames my family gave the beast were covering a deep unease but never let that stop you! It needed a honest try to know if it was frankenturkey or sliced bread's successor. After all, the juicy chicken, the rich duck, wrapped in the turkey - there's a lot of potential there.
The shape was impressively deceptive: aside from some fearful stitches on the side (look away, look away!) it was as smooth and shapely as any Butterball. The wings and drumsticks are still attached, so tucking it into my roaster, it was easy to believe that it was a regular turkey, although I don't usually sprinkle spicy-looking seasoning on mine.
Carving, however, is
The slices were heavy on turkey and sausage, light on chicken and duck. Flavour - hmmm - there was some, yup there really was - but wow, so not remarkable. The turkey tasted turkeyish, the sausage was a fine paste of acceptable edibility but no. Won't be going there again.
So thanks, turkducken, for your mad scientist hybridization that gave a enjoyable frisson of danger to our dinner - but we'll stick with the original.