Turducken
Trademark: Turducken
First Used: November 27, 1980
First Registered: August 26, 1986
Current Owner: MAGIC SEASONING BLENDS, LLC [1]
Trademark Type: traditional trademark; word mark
Primarily Associated With: combination turkey, duck and chicken entrée for consumption on or off the premises [2]
Generic Phrase: roast, as in TURDUCKEN® Brand roast
Brief (and likely incomplete) History [3]:
Happy Thanksgiving! Sometimes it can be hard to decide what to serve or eat as the main course. Feeling a little weird? The perfect solution may be to just choose all the meats and go with the Turducken® roast.
The rare three-word portmanteau (“turkey,” “duck,” and “chicken,” obvi), the Turducken roast consists of a deboned chicken stuffed into a deboned duck (to form the “ducken”), which is then stuffed into a deboned turkey (to form full the Turducken roast). Bread stuffing and plenty of Cajun seasoning is often included in-between each layer of meat.
The Turducken roast’s origin is as mysterious as the meat monstrosity itself. It’s debated, but Louisiana chef Paul Prudhomme claims to be the inventor of the Turducken roast. Others claim that the meat combination is simply part of a long history of “engastration,” the practice of stuffing one animal inside another, which dates back to the Middle Ages and was popular in European and Middle Eastern cuisines.
Regardless of the initial creator, there is no doubt that chef Paul Prudhomme greatly popularized the dish in the 1980s. In the 1990s, NFL coach and commentator John Madden discovered the Turducken roast and furthered its popularity. Madden's enthusiasm for the multi-layered meat roast made it a Thanksgiving football tradition. Starting in 1997, Madden would eat it on the NFL Thanksgiving broadcast every season, and even once famously tore it apart using his bare hands alone.
Hungry for more trademarks? Check out our post on Tofurky!
Copyright © 2024 by Illustrated IP, LLC. All rights reserved.
[1] Magic Seasoning Blends, https://www.magicseasoningblends.com/.
[2] USPTO, U.S. Trademark Registration No. 1,406,947, available at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=73576432&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.
[3] Turducken, MAGIC SEASONING BLENDS, available at https://www.magicseasoningblends.com/recipes/turducken/; The Turducken Tale: Chef Paul’s Legendary Creation, MAGIC SEASONING BLENDS, posted November 14, 2024, and available at https://www.magicseasoningblends.com/the-turducken-tale-chef-pauls-legendary-creation/; Turducken: A Brief History of the Most Complicated Thanksgiving Recipe, TASTE OF HOME, last updated May 16, 2022, and available at https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/turducken-a-brief-history-of-the-most-complicated-thanksgiving-recipe/?srsltid=AfmBOoppYcnzT_yTLILZJNw_gXbZ6hRKIt-kFg2d14y2hZEXO5zecAnh; Turducken Has Been Weird for a Very Long Time, FOOD52, posted August 5, 2021, and available at https://food52.com/blog/14637-the-brief-history-of-the-turducken-and-stuffing-food-in-food.