If ever there were evidence as to why the world needs more poets, it can be found in one word: turducken. No poet, nor anyone sensitive to language, would allow anything edible to be given such a name. It’s bad enough that the word in its entirety sounds hideous; it’s worse that its first syllable is turd. On the other hand, perhaps such a cacophonous (and coprophagic) name is apropos for a food item as baroque as turducken: a boneless chicken is stuffed with reddish sausage stuffing; then the chicken is stuffed into a boneless duck along with yellowish cornbread stuffing; then the chicken and duck are stuffed into a boneless turkey with greenish oyster stuffing. After the monstrosity is cooked for twelve hours, it’s sliced open to reveal concentric circles of variously coloured flesh and stuffing, somewhat reminiscent of a tree ring. As a food, turducken traces its lineage back to nineteenth-century Cajun cuisine, though it was only in the early 1980s that renowned chef Paul Prudhomme introduced it to a wider audience of gastronomes. It was also around that time that the dish came to be known as turducken, a word that obviously combines various syllables from turkey, duck, and chicken. Later, in 1997, millions of hapless Americans were exposed to turducken when football commentator John Madden tore into one during the half-time of a Thanksgiving Day football game.