Move Over 'Turducken' -- There's a New Ridiculous Thanksgiving Meat That's Kind of Hard to Look At

What's the strangest food you have ever seen or eaten at Thanksgiving dinner? Was it a tofu turkey, AKA "tofurkey" -- a cooked mound of tofu shaped like a turkey?

Image: FreshTofu.com

Perhaps you've sampled the "turducken," a triple-poultry meat combination that stuffs a boneless turkey with a boneless duck and a boneless chicken.

Well, here's a new one: the cockentrice.

First, a little history.

Turducken isn't exactly new, but it entered the lexicon and started appearing on foodies' radar in 1997 when legendary football coach and announcer John Madden talked about it during a Thanksgiving broadcast from New Orleans.

Los Angeles public TV station KCET reported on the history of the turducken, quoting Madden on his first experience with the delicacy: ''The PR guy for the Saints brought me one. And he brought it to the booth. It smelled and looked so good. I didn't have any plates or silverware or anything, and I just started eating it with my hands.''

Now that the turducken has become commonplace on many Thanksgiving tables, it's time for a new bizarre main dish that combines a couple of different meats. That would be the cockentrice, a Medieval dish that's started popping up on menus.

What's a cockentrice? Very simply, it's half of a suckling pig attached to half of a chicken or turkey (complete with the legs). The result creates a bit of a startling image.

Like the turducken, which combines the names of the three foods needed to create the tasty treat, the cockentrice name has its roots in meats used back in the 15th century. It's a bit of a Middle Ages mashup. The Gode Cookery teaches us that "cokagrys" or "cotagres" was a combination of cock (typically a capon)  and grys (the suckling pig). Cockentrice was often served at special feasts known as "great dinners." There are records saying "cokytryche" (another common spelling) was on the menu of one such festival held in September of 1425 given by John Stafford, Bishop of Bath and Wells.

Witness a few of the cockentrice photos we found on various websites.

The Atlantic featured a chef who used the front half of the pig with the back half of the bird.

Image: Richard Fitch

Foods of the World showed the cockentrice using the front-half of the bird attached to the back-half of the pig.

Image: Foods Of The World

No matter which combination one uses, the end result is guaranteed to be a conversation-starter.

Image: Foods Of The World

So, if you have not yet finalized your Thanksgiving menu and want to try something different and a bit adventurous, you may want to attempt the cockentrice. Thanks to legions of foodies with a love for history, there are myriad recipes for this Medieval meal. The Gode Cookery offers three easy-to-follow recipes, translated from the original 15th century cookbook.

TheBlaze welcomes photos and videos from any reader who tries to execute the cockentrice.

Happy Thanksgiving!

(H/T: The Atlantic)

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Follow Mike Opelka on Twitter - @stuntbrain

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