At a time when they’re saying that Father Christmas is too fat and that Sex Makes Men Healthier, surely it’s time for Santa to put two and two together and get himself a partner? It’s certainly not the time to be discussing unhealthy, fattening Christmas dinners. Or is it?
I was chatting with a friend of mine about Christmas dinner and he mentioned the idea of making a ballotine. “What the hell is a ballotine?” I asked him. He explained. “A ballotine is a multi-bird roast.” The most common type of ballotine in the UK is called a turducken. To make one, you stuff multiple birds (ooh-err missus), one inside the other, before cooking. As an alternative, if you use a Goose in your turducken, instead of a Turkey, it’s called a gooducken (I’m glad there’s no ‘f’ in the middle there).
All of this got me thinking, in my usual mischievous way…
I wonder what the biggest number of birds ever put into a ballotine is?
Well, I looked it up and here is the answer, courtesy of Wikipedia…
The largest recorded nested bird roast is 17 birds, attributed to a royal feast in France in the early 19th century (originally called a Rôti Sans Pareil, or “Roast without equal”) – a bustard stuffed with a turkey, a goose, a pheasant, a chicken, a duck, a guinea fowl, a teal, a woodcock, a partridge, a plover, a lapwing, a quail, a thrush, a lark, an Ortolan Bunting and a Garden Warbler.[4] The final bird is very small but large enough to hold just an olive; it also suggests that, unlike modern multi-bird roasts, there was no stuffing or other packing placed in between the birds. It appears illegal to make today as some of the species are endangered.
It appears that the demand for multi-bird-roasts at Christmas time has risen over the last few years. This may be partly due to TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s creation of a ten-bird roast on his television show a few years ago.
After looking further into the concept, I found a Daily Mail article from 2007 which talks about a 12 bird turducken; a huge feast of protein dubbed ‘The True Love Roast’ because it contained one bird for each day of Christmas. The cost of this Christmas delight? £665. It weighed in at almost four stone, took over 8 hours to cook and served 125 people. So, what birds did Devon farmer Anne Petch choose to use in her creation?
1. Turkey, 2. Goose, 3. Barbary duck, 4. Guinea fowl, 5. Mallard, 6. Poussin, 7. Quail, 8. Partridge, 9. Pigeon squab, 10. Pheasant, 11. Chicken, 12. Aylesbury duck
A photo of the meat used in Anne’s turducken is below. You can read the full story in this Daily Mail article.
The 'True Love Roast' Ballotine
So, it’s a 12 bird creation. But, that doesn’t beat the record of 17 birds. To get that record, it would need to be produced without using some of the endangered birds in the Wikipedia list. So, here is my list. I just need someone to offer to make it…
Robin (Merry Christmas Mr Robin), Garden Warbler, Blackbird, Poussin, Quail, Partridge, Pigeon, Dove, Chicken, Duck, Guinea Fowl, Grouse, Pheasant, Goose, Turkey, Emu, Ostrich, Susan Boyle.
Who wants to give it a try?
loading...
