(Turducken, one of Louisiana's more idiosyncratic regional delicacies, was included in an update of the 11th edition of Merriam-Webster's CollegiateDictionary and the company's free online database. The mainstream acceptance the move signified was long ago secured in Louisiana, where turduckens are nearly as commonly found around the holidays as, well, turkeys. This story, published November 18, 2005, follows the efforts of one business to assure New Orleans had a ready supply of turduckens for the first holiday season after Hurricane Katrina.)
"Ready?"
Before waiting for an answer, Glenn Mistich proceeded to do in less than two minutes what has been known to take novices all day to accomplish: Debone a turkey.
"You don't want to leave too much meat on the bones," he said as he carved the legs clean.
In Mistich's hands, the complicated business of removing a bird's skeleton while keeping its body whole looks no more difficult than cleaning a pineapple. Even so, he's still not the deftest butcher at The Gourmet Butcher Block, his Cajun-style meat market in Gretna.
"Greg over here does them in 37 seconds," Mistich said, holding the limp, deboned turkey up by its wings. Greg Chartier, a nine-year Butcher Block employee, was standing nearby, grinning at the mention of his prowess.
"I used to be the fastest," Mistich said. "I guess I teach them well."
Speed is not just a bragging right at the Gourmet Butcher Block, particularly not this year. Deboning a turkey is the first step in making a turducken, the somewhat peculiar regional specialty that involves stuffing a boneless duck inside a boneless chicken inside a boneless turkey.
Sixty percent of Mistich's annual sales come during the holiday rush on turduckens and other prepared meats that are the Gourmet Butcher Block's specialty. To meet demand, Mistich and his staff typically begin filling the walk-in freezers with turduckens and deboned birds in March. For Mistich, no power in New Orleans meant losing the fruits of half a year's labor: Roughly 4,000 birds, he estimates.
"This was chockablock, from here to here, all the way to the ceiling," Mistich said while standing in Butcher Block's cavernous freezer, framing with his hands the scope of his staff's pre-Katrina handiwork. He wore a short-sleeved denim shirt under an apron that, at noon, was darkly stained with his day's work.
"We had a quarter million dollars of product put up, mostly turduckens and deboned stuffed chickens and turkeys. We ended up losing it all."
Replenishing that supply will be no picnic. The hurricane closed the Butcher Block's Metairie location. Working seven days a week between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Mistich figures he'll be able to make 2,000 turduckens to sell over the holidays. He kept his full-time employees on the payroll while his Gretna store, which opened in early October, was shuttered. They've all returned, if under less than ideal circumstances.
Manager Mike Paisley is presently homeless. "FEMA's supposed to be dropping me a trailer here, out by the dumpster, so I have a place to live," he said as he dropped broccoli florets into a super-sized stock pot.
"It's my wedding anniversary today," he said, motioning to his wife, Tara Paisley, who was on the other side of the room, vacuum-packing stuffed chickens. "She wanted to be here. So we put her to work."
"I got 26 first cousins that lost homes down in Plaquemines Parish," Mistich said. "Knowing that they're struggling, finding places to live, I don't know. It's hard."
While Mistich has meat in his blood -- his great-grandfather used to fill a buggy with freshly butchered beef to sell along the levee in Plaquemines Parish -- he married into the turducken game. Leah Mistich, his wife and business partner, comes from the family that runs Hebert's Specialty Meats in Maurice.
"There's a controversy between her family and Paul Prudhomme on who started" making turduckens first, Mistich said. "I don't know who started it. I just like doing it."
Mistich spread a pound and a half of sausage stuffing inside the cavity of the flattened bird. Atop that he laid a deboned chicken which, like every layer in the turducken, is sprinkled liberally with one of three seasoning blends named after his children: Chazz, Tabitha and Bracie.
Beyond the immediate challenges of replenishing the holiday stock under trying circumstances is the fact that The Gourmet Butcher Block has never been busier. Mistich said his sales jumped 10 percent after reopening, and that was before he acquired the equipment enabling him to accept government food vouchers.
"Sales from that point doubled," he said. "It's the same customers we had, but they have more money to spend. The government's saying, 'You've got to spend this money by the end of November.' So they're coming in and power buying."
Easily Mistich's most powerful single buyer is sports broadcaster John Madden, who first sampled a turducken about eight years ago when he was working a Saints game at the Superdome.
"One of the guys on the Saints staff was a friend of Glenn's, and we were talking about turducken," Madden said in a telephone interview. A turducken was subsequently sent to the booth, and Madden dug in.
"I'm there eating this turducken with my fingers," Madden recalled. "(Saints owner) Tom Benson comes in and I have all this stuff on my fingers and I'm doing that thing in my head where I'm wondering, 'Do I shake his hand?' "
(For the record: Madden did shake Benson's hand, sticky fingers and all, and he said the two haven't spoken since.)
Madden was hooked. He's eaten a Gourmet Butcher Block turducken for Thanksgiving every year since, and not just any turducken, but a customized version fashioned with six legs.
Mistich doesn't make the six-legged turduckens except on rare occasions. "One guy asked how much and I said, '$600.' He said, 'I'll take it.' " Mistich flashed a sideways grin. "Some guy from New York."
Mistich had just placed duck breasts inside the cavity of the chicken, after which he folded the turkey upward and sutured it closed with kitchen twine.
The breasts are a relatively recent compromise. "Ducks are harder to debone than chickens and turkeys," he said. "We just don't have time."
Particularly not now.
