Spice Up Your Holidays with the Cajun Meat Company
Cajun Meat Company - 2211 Roswell RD, Marietta, GA
The holidays always feel like a blur to me. It is a frenzy of celebrations and family gatherings from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day centered around meals anchored in tradition. Whether it is roasted turkey, pheasant, goose, beef tenderloin, prime rib, or Honey Baked Ham, we all have our preferred edible go-tos this time of year. But if you are looking for a little something extra, also known as lagniappe in Cajun country, you might want to consider a turducken this holiday season.
What the F--kin’ is a Turducken?
My wife Amanda pronounces it: tur-dunk-en, as in Dunkin’ Donuts. But the correct pronunciation is: tur-duh-kn. The USDA defines “turducken” as a deboned stuffed chicken inside a deboned stuffed duck inside a deboned stuffed turkey. After all, why limit yourself to one bird when you can have three? The origin of this feathered Frankenstein is a bit of a mystery. By most accounts, chef Paul Prudhomme claims to have invented it in the 1970s, eventually copyrighting the name, “Turducken” in 1986. Others claim it originated from Hebert’s Specialty Meats in Maurice, Louisiana by proprietors Junior and Sammy Hebert in the early 1980s. And while the truth is likely somewhere in the stuffing, what cannot be denied is that the turducken gained national recognition when it was introduced to legendary NFL broadcaster John Madden during the Saints-Rams game at the Superdome in 1996. He was so delighted by it he allegedly ate it with his hands in the broadcast booth. Madden continued to praise what co-announcer Al Michaels referred to as, “some kind of fowl crossbreed” on Thanksgiving and Monday Night Football games for the remainder of his career.
If you live in or around southern Louisiana, turduckens are fairly easy to come by, but for those of you who reside elsewhere, you are in luck thanks to Chad Treadaway, founder of the Cajun Meat Company.
The Cajun Meat Company
Chad grew up in Empire, Louisiana the son of an oil field worker and oyster fisherman. He attended Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond and found his way into the meat packing business. He married his high school sweetheart, Christi and moved to the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, Georgia, in 2001. The only request of his family was that he not become a Falcons fan. Twenty-three years later, Cajun Meat Co is still thriving, offering deer processing, specialty meats, fresh seafood, Louisiana products, Creole classics including boudin, gumbo, etouffee, and Natchitoches meat pies. But in the peak seasonal months of November and December, deer processing is put on hold so the team can fill over 2,500 stuffed turkey and turducken orders placed locally and nationwide. That’s correct, their birds can fly with a little help from UPS 2-day delivery.
Their traditional turducken is layered from the outside-in as follows: turkey + Creole pork sausage, duck + Creole pork sausage, and chicken + cornbread dressing. The total weight is approximately 16 pounds and serves 20 to 25 guests. If you are looking for a scaled down version, they offer a turducken breast layered with sausage only (no dressing) which weighs in at eight pounds and serves seven to 10. All shipped orders include instructions for thawing, cooking, gravy, and carving. And if you happen to misplace your instructions, like me, you can find them online.
But it doesn’t end there. They offer solo deboned turkeys or chickens stuffed with shrimp, crawfish, cornbread, dirty rice, or broccoli cheese and rice dressing. They are happy to accommodate custom orders outside of the week of Thanksgiving. If you only want sides, no problem. Heat and serve side dishes can be purchased separately by the quart.
They also stock Camellia dry beans, Blue Runner canned beans, spices, Cafe Du Monde chicory coffee, beignet mix, and even jarred roux if you need to save yourself some time in the kitchen. You read that right, jarred roux. It gave me pause as well. But Chad assured me that while this is a passable hack, he prefers to make his roux from scratch. Amen.
Cajun Keys to Success
A few items to ensure les bon temps (good times):
Get your order in early. If you are picking up in person, be prepared to take a number and wait in line like a “Who Dat?” DMV.
Give yourself adequate thawing and cooking time. Full-size turduckens can take five to six days to thaw in the refrigerator, or 16~18 hours to thaw at room temperature. Allow at least five hours of cooking time in a conventional oven and up to 10 hours if you intend to smoke it low and slow.
Explore the sides, especially the etouffee, gumbo, and boudin which is offered in pork, shrimp, or crawfish varieties.
I recommend ordering a quart of chicken and sausage gumbo and serving it over jambalaya, a creation which my sister concocted and coined, “gumbo-laya.” If jambalaya is not available on the menu, do not fret. You can substitute it with the rice dressing. Chad on the other hand advocates serving the gumbo over potato salad, which is how they do it down the bayou. Suffice to say if you are looking to inject a little piece of Acadiana into your holiday meal, the Cajun Meat Company is only a call or click away.
Happy Holidays!