gooducken meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

gooducken

noun

Etymology Blend of goose + duck + chicken.

A dish composed of a goose stuffed with duck which, in turn, has been stuffed with chicken.

Suppliers of gooduckens say orders this Christmas are more than double those of last year, buoyed by the support of celebrities such as the actress Emma Thompson.2004 November 21, gwendolen, quoting “Three-in-one bird is big this Christmas” by Will Iredale, “Re: Something for Nella?”, in alt.support.loneliness.lighthouse-keepers (Usenet):
The must-have centrepiece this Christmas seems to be the ‘gooducken’, which is a goose stuffed with a duck that has been stuffed with a chicken.2004 December 16, Evening Standard, London, page 36:

4 more examples

One drawback: Unless you're an expert butcher, you will probably need to have your gooducken, goopheasen or other variant prepared for you.2007 December 5, FunMan, quoting “What is a gooducken?”, “Gooducken”, in nl.culinair (Usenet):
Even with these enormous dishes, yet more meat lined the tables; skillets of hare with tangerine jelly, fritters of river pike, poached sturgeon with a garnish of its own caviar and even a gooducken, the extravagant portmanteau of a chicken stuffed within a duck, stuffed within a goose.2017, Taran Matharu, Summoner: The Battlemage, Hooder Children’s Books, →ISBN:
There are also variants such as (in America) the gooducken (a chicken in a duck in a goose), Waitrose’s popular four-bird roast (a guinea fowl in a duck in a turkey in a goose) and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s frankly ridiculous ten-bird roast – an 18lb turkey with a goose, a duck, a mallard, a guinea fowl, a chicken, a pheasant, a partridge, a pigeon and a woodcock inside it.2021, Henry Scowcroft, Cross Everything: A Personal Journey into the Evolution of Cancer, Green Tree, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 59:
The English prepare a gooducken in which the turkey is replaced with a goose.2021 November 25, Greg Hilburn, “Louisiana’s Thanksgiving gifts to the world”, in The News-Star, volume 93, number 41, page 4A: