I tried a £150 turducken so you don't have to - what I'd do again though I won't
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I've never tried a Russian nesting doll of meat before this week. Turducken is a perfect portmanteau: turkey, duck and chicken combined together and cooked as one. Why not stop there? James Alexander Fine Foods' five-bird roast takes it even further by squeezing in partridge and pheasant with pancetta on top.
The price tag begins at £149 for one that feeds 7-8 people, all the way up to £224 for a 16-person roast. Faced with the opportunity to sample a Frankenbird, I was the only one of my colleagues willing to open up my heart and mind to the creation. Allured by the novelty, I marvelled at the funny story it would make to my friends and family if it were actually delicious. It was not.
The five birds are neatly held together by netting on which overlapping strips of pancetta drizzled with aromatic herbs form an attractive lid. However, it came without a diagram (what meat is what?) or even cooking instructions. I'm a seasoned host of Thanksgiving and Christmas, but a novelty item such as this requires direction. While I know exactly what a cooked turkey looks like, this roll of meat was a mystery to me. I found the instructions on their website, but not placing a copy with the order felt like a blindspot.
A seed of doubt was planted when a colleague declined the roast due to the food poisoning she'd suffered from a three-bird roast last Christmas. Curious as I was for the experience, I was not going to get food poisoned five ways for work. My unease builds when DPD delivers the parcel five hours late. The bird, still cold to the touch, arrived atop an ice pack and sheathed in lambswool.
