Most Recent Posts

The turducken — a whole chicken stuffed inside a whole duck stuffed inside a whole turkey, all boneless — is a relatively recent culinary phenomenon. Though popularized in the past 20 years with the help of Louisiana's Chef Paul Prudhomme and John Madden, who brought one to a football game broadcast in 1997, the turducken actually builds on a long tradition of creative bird-into-bird stuffing.

Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de la Reynire, the world's first restaurant critic, in 1803 launched the Almanach des Gourmands, what the Paris-based dining historian Carolin Young calls the world's first serial food journal. He would edit and publish this best-selling guide to seasonal cooking and restaurants until 1812.

Like any good publisher, Grimod de la Reynire knew he needed to slide in some extra flair from time to time. And in 1807, he put out a recipe for rti sans pareil, the roast without equal.

The Salt

Frogs And Puffins! 1730s Menus Reveal Royals Were Extreme Foodies

The daredevil-ish recipe calls for a tiny warbler stuffed in a bunting, inserted in a lark, squeezed in a thrush, thrown in a quail, inserted in a lapwing, introduced to a plover, piled into a partridge, wormed into a woodcock, shoehorned into a teal, kicked into a guinea fowl, rammed inside a duck, shoved into a chicken, jammed up in a pheasant, wedged deep inside a goose, logged into a turkey. And just when you think a 16-bird roast is probably enough, it's not. This meat sphere is finally crammed up into a Great Bustard, an Old World turkey-turned-wrapping paper, for this most epic of poultry meals.

Holiday Recipes

The Veggieducken: A Meatless Dish With Gravitas

While there's no record of anyone actually making the rti sans pareil, Grimod de la Reynire seemingly achieved what is every publisher's goal: capturing (generations of) eyeballs. (If you want a visual of the concoction, check out the illustrations that Wired magazine and Vice came up with.)

It's clear that culinary stunts with meat started long before chefs were grilling steaks with molten lava. Take the cockentrice, a half-pig, half-turkey combo that rode the line between mythical beast and gastronomic masterpiece during the reign of Henry VIII in the 16th century. It's been re-created by Richard Fitch, the project coordinator for the Historic Kitchens at Hampton Palace, who told Vice that while these dishes certainly weren't the norm, Henry VIII once served a cockentrice and a dolphin to the French King, Francis I. (As we've previously reported, royals of that era went to great lengths for a culinary thrill.)

While the roti may seem freakish or excessive today, we do have the bacon-wrapped alligator, a sort of modern-day meat mummy.

For those who heart turducken, the demand is high enough that big-box stores like Sam's Club and Costco now stock them. There's even a vegetarian version, if the stuffing concept floats your boat.

food history

Thanksgiving

The Imitation Game is the story of Alan Turing: British mathematician, World War II code breaker and seminal theoretician of computer science. "It's a war thriller, it's a love story and a tragic testament to a genius wronged," the star of the film, Benedict Cumberbatch, tells NPR's Robert Siegel.

Turing, who was openly gay at a time when homosexuality was a crime in Britain, talked his way into a job helping the British crack the German code called Enigma. Cumberbatch says the film's script has a "beautifully complex unraveling through time ... the unraveling of both the problem and the man, himself, trying to solve the problem."

Interview Highlights

On the audience's introduction to Turing, who was known to be awkward and eccentric

I think what's extraordinary about Graham Moore's first feature script is how you, layer by layer, sort of uncover this man at the same parallel time as the team he eventually does play a part of. ... And I think, to be fair to Alan, what's beautiful about Graham's script in his introduction to him ... it's utterly uncompromising. There's no vanity, you're not asked to like the character. You're introduced to him, warts and all. And he is ... difficult; he's very stubborn and arrogant.

“ But there's a sort of naive guilelessness about the whole thing. He doesn't come in with an abrasive attitude. He just doesn't have the formal respect for authority. ... And he is utterly brilliant and he knows it and he's been told that and he doesn't mind talking about it. But it's not to show off; for him, it's a statement of fact.

- Benedict Cumberbatch, on playing Alan Turing

But there's a sort of naive guilelessness about the whole thing. He doesn't come in with an abrasive attitude. He just doesn't have the formal respect for authority. ... And he is utterly brilliant and he knows it and he's been told that and he doesn't mind talking about it. But it's not to show off; for him, it's a statement of fact.

On the way the state punished Turing for being gay

It's disgusting to think that within less than 100 years [that] this was going on hundreds — thousands in fact — of men were prosecuted and given the chance to choose simply between two years' imprisonment or two years' state-sanctioned chemical castration through weekly estrogen injections. Alan chose the latter in order to continue his work. But the man was a marathon runner as well as a sexually active homosexual man, and not only did the drug ravage his body and affect his physicality but it also started slowly to impinge on his faculty, on his mind, on his ability to do that work. So he was denied the one door he still had left open to him for love, for freedom, for expressing who he was.

On bringing Turing's story to a wider audience

In comparison to his achievements and his greatness — both as a scientific mind [and] philosopher ... somebody who ... basically was the father of computer science, somebody who was part of an effort that saved, some estimate, 14 million lives by breaking a code that brought about a two-years-early end to World War II. That that man wasn't better-known — I mean, why isn't he on bank notes with Darwin and Newton? Why isn't he on the cover of history books as well as science books? That really was a driving motivation for me to tell this story and bring his legacy to a wider audience.

More On Alan Turing

All Tech Considered

Do Feelings Compute? If Not, The Turing Test Doesn't Mean Much

13.7: Cosmos And Culture

The Turing Test Is Not What You Think It Is

The Two-Way

Britain Releases World War II Code-Breaking Papers

The Two-Way

Alan Turing, Who Cracked Nazi Code, Gets Posthumous Pardon

On the Turing machine

It's more than a machine. I mean, that machine takes on such a personality. .... A replica is still at Bletchley Park, which I advise any of your listeners who are lucky enough to be in that part of the world to go and see it. It's the most extraordinary, chilling, amazing exhibit of all the work. ... You can ask someone to give you a very patient explanation of it because it's quite complex. But basically, it was the machine that Alan adapted from a Polish machine to break the other machine, the Enigma machine — which was capable of ... 159 million, million, million possible variations every single day that would change at midnight. It was beyond the human ability to crack.

On the way these machines are seen in 2014

"Where's the screen?" as one friend's child said. ... Broke my heart when I heard that. But the same kid then went home and Googled — using probably an algorithm very similar in the search engines that were used by Turing, invented by Turing to break the code in the second world war — used a Google search engine in order to look up and research more about Enigma. This is an 8-year-old. I mean, it's fantastic.

On his decision to go by Benedict Cumberbatch (his father, also an actor, is named Timothy Carlton, and Cumberbatch's full name is Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch)

I started as Benedict Carlton. I think Carlton's a great name; it was my grandfather's first name and I never got to meet him, so that alone was a good reason. And I wasn't getting anywhere with my first agent and with that name and when I went to meet someone else at a new agency about six months after I graduated, she said, "Why on earth don't you use your family name? It's the most fantastically, extraordinary, unforgettable name." ...

“ Even I can't say it early on a Monday morning. It sounds like a fart in a bath. There's a whole lot of bubbles.

- Benedict Cumberbatch, on the sound of his own name

She rightfully said, "Look, it's pretty unforgettable once you get your head around it." And I said, "Yeah, but even I can't say it early on a Monday morning." It sounds like a fart in a bath. There's a whole lot of bubbles. But, you know, it seems to have worked out all right, doesn't it, Robert?

On whether being famous is fun

It's fun. It's got to be fun. There are moments when, like all of us, you get a bit self-conscious and you'd rather not be living any of your day in public. Those are the awkward times, but you've got to have fun with it.

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

If this year's National Book Awards saw a fiery speech from Ursula K. Le Guin, the evening also featured incendiary comments of quite another kind. Ceremony host Daniel Handler — whom most readers might know better by his pen name, Lemony Snicket — made several racially charged jokes that drew a strong reaction Thursday.

In the wake of Jacqueline Woodson's win for her memoir in verse, Brown Girl Dreaming, Handler brought up the topic of watermelon — which, to put it lightly, was a poor idea. His joke is reproduced here in full (and you can watch the video here):

"I told you! I told Jackie she was going to win. And I said that if she won, I would tell all of you something I learned this summer, which is that Jackie Woodson is allergic to watermelon. Just let that sink in your mind.

"And I said, 'You have to put that in a book.' And she said, 'You put that in a book.' And I said that I am only writing a book about a black girl who is allergic to watermelon if I get a blurb from you, Cornell West, Toni Morrison and Barack Obama saying, 'This guy's OK. This guy's fine.' "

The joke wasn't his first of the night to bear racial overtones. He also quipped that two black nominees together in the poetry category may be considered "probable cause."

The reaction was swift. Writers such as Roxane Gay, Kwame Alexander and Laila Lalami (as well as plenty of publications) were quick to condemn the remarks on Thursday. For his part, Handler's apology came nearly as quickly, and it arrived via Twitter.

My job at last night's National Book Awards #NBAwards was to shine a light on tremendous writers, including Jacqueline Woodson... -DH [1/2]

— Daniel Handler (@DanielHandler) November 20, 2014

...and not to overshadow their achievements with my own ill-conceived attempts at humor. I clearly failed, and I’m sorry. -DH [2/2]

— Daniel Handler (@DanielHandler) November 20, 2014

It's Not Ludwig Van: Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, composed a song in dedication to a woman named Barbara in 1951. After more than half a century lost, that song has been found, according to The Guardian. Discovered amid the late woman's possessions by her 100-year-old husband, the song will be performed by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation on Nov. 26.

It's A [Book]! Children's publishing imprint Ladybird has announced its plans to drop the gendered labels from its books, according to an announcement from the Let Books Be Books campaign. The campaign, a spin-off of the Let Toys Be Toys group, has for months pressured children's publishers to stop marking books "for boys" or "for girls," arguing that they confine children to presuppositions about gender.

"At Ladybird we certainly don't want to be seen to be limiting children in any way," reads Ladybird's announcement. "Out of literally hundreds of titles currently in print, we actually only have the six titles you cite with this kind of titling, so I do feel we offer a vast range for children and their parents. As Ladybird is part of the Penguin Random House Children's division, our commitment to avoiding gendered titles in the trade crosses all our imprints."

Fun, Fun, Fun: One of the founders of the Beach Boys plans to publish his memoir in 2016. Mike Love's book is tentatively titled Good Vibrations, naturally, but it may not be the first Beach Boy autobiography to hit bookstores in the coming years. Fellow founder — and frequent rival — Brian Wilson expects to release one of his own in 2015.

CIA Reviews Edward Snowden Books: Seriously, though — this is not satire. Hayden Peake puts together the "Intelligence Officer's Bookshelf" for the agency, and lately he has picked up three books on the Snowden intelligence leaks, including Glenn Greenwald's No Place to Hide. While Peake did offer a few words of praise, his conclusion isn't exactly a surprise.

"Greenwald's often bitter ad hominem rationale for [Snowden's actions] is unlikely to be the last word on the subject."

When Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) first entered politics in the 1960s, he started out as moderate — pro-abortion rights, pro-union, in support of the civil rights movement. With time, McConnell shifted to the right as the Republican Party shifted.

"I was just really startled by this when I started looking into it," Alec MacGillis tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "I knew that he had started out as somewhat more moderate — but I didn't realize just how moderate he really was."

The Cynic

The Political Education of Mitch Mcconnell

by Alec Macgillis

Digital Download, 50 pages | purchase

Purchase Featured Book

TitleThe CynicSubtitleThe Political Education of Mitch McconnellAuthorAlec Macgillis

Your purchase helps support NPR Programming. How?

Amazon

iBooks

Independent Booksellers

Politics & Public Affairs

Nonfiction

Biography & Memoir

More on this book:

NPR reviews, interviews and more

MacGillis's new book The Cynic: The Political Education of Mitch McConnell traces how McConnell became one of the most powerful politicians in the country — and it examines McConnell's evolution as a politician.

In the 1960s, McConnell was "firmly pro-abortion rights," says MacGillis.

"In his first elected office in Louisville, Ky., as county executive in Louisville, he repeatedly snuffed out anti-abortion bills that were coming through his office — didn't even let them come up for a vote or a hearing," he says.

But in 1984, McConnell barely won his seat in the Senate — by fewer than 5,000 votes.

"There was no question what had happened — that McConnell had won basically on the coattails of Ronald Reagan," MacGillis says. "And McConnell looked at that very, very close result and basically thought to himself, 'You know what? I don't want it to ever be this close again. I see where the Republican Party is heading; I see where my state is heading; I see where the South is heading politically — and I need to get on that train.' "

McConnell, who has been the Senate minority leader since 2007, will become the majority leader when the new term starts in January.

And according to MacGillis, "This is what he's dreamed about since he was a very, very young man ... and now he's about to achieve that dream."

Interview Highlights

On McConnell's political positions when he first entered politics in the 1960s

There was a big battle back in the Republican Party in the '60s between the conservative wing and a still quite strong moderate wing. This is, of course, during the time of Barry Goldwater's 1964 nomination to the party coming from the conservative wing. But there was still a very, very strong moderate contingent of the party and Mitch McConnell was completely on that side of the line.

He was very firmly pro-union. In his first election back in 1977 in Louisville, he got the endorsement of the AFL-CIO because he backed collective bargaining for public employees, which is something even a lot of Democrats today don't support. He sought out the head of the AFL-CIO at the bowling alley in Louisville and sweet-talked him and got his support.

He was very firmly in support of the civil rights movement, which back in Kentucky was not necessarily the obvious thing to do. He, as a student, would show up at civil rights rallies and was very much in favor of the legislation in Washington in the '60s.

On how McConnell embodies the changes in the Republican Party over the past 30 years

McConnell, to me, embodies two things in politics today: One is the transformation of the Republican Party from a party that used to have quite a few moderate and liberal members and Northern liberal Republicans — Midwestern moderate Republicans — into a party that is now much more monolithically conservative and really Southern-dominated.

“ It's not so much what you do when you're in power in Washington; it's what you do to position yourself for the next time around. ... That mindset has become very prevalent. It's bipartisan and it also suffuses the media — but McConnell embodies it really more than anybody else.

- Alec MacGillis, The New Republic

McConnell really embodies that shift because he himself has evolved with that transformation just to a tee. But at the same time ... he embodies for me the mindset that has become more and more dominant in Washington today ... which is the permanent campaign mindset.

It's the mindset that all that really matters is the next election, the next cycle. It's not so much what you do when you're in power in Washington; it's what you do to position yourself for the next time around, your next re-election, your party's next election cycle. That mindset has become very prevalent. It's bipartisan and it also suffuses the media — but McConnell embodies it really more than anybody else.

On McConnell figuring out how to use the rules of the Senate to benefit his party

He is a master of Senate procedure. That's one of his real strengths. ... He just has studied it very, very closely. [He's] studied how it works ... and figured out how you could use ... [the rules] within this sort of very vague culture-based and nebulous realm of the Senate where these rules are not necessarily written down anywhere — some of them are, but others are just things that have carried over in tradition and culture of the institution. He's figured out how you can use these procedures — and also the customs that have built up over time to really slow things down and gum up the works in ways that hadn't been done before.

On how McConnell lined up support for leadership posts in the Senate

More On Mitch McConnell

Politics

Mitch McConnell's Mission: Making The Senate Work Again

It's All Politics

Sen. Mitch McConnell Has More Than Most Riding On Midterm Elections

It's All Politics

McConnell Concedes GOP Senate Will Not Mean Obamacare Repeal

It's something he campaigned for more aggressively than just about anyone before him. His colleagues in the Senate were struck to see just how determined and eager he was to climb the ladder. And what he would do is he would start quite early, several years before the elections for these various leadership posts, he would start strategizing in how to win those elections. He had a wingman, his colleague [former Sen.] Bob Bennett from Utah ... [who] would go out a year or two in advance and start trying to count up votes and feel people out on whether they would support Mitch or someone else. ...

Again, McConnell was not the most naturally popular or beloved person within his caucus, so he really needed help from someone else to kind of go out and line up those votes for him. They would badmouth the opposition and various rivals for various jobs ... really, in a junior high school kind of way — trying to line up support so that when the time came for the elections for the various leadership posts high up the ladder, it suddenly would become clear that McConnell had, in fact, lined up just enough support to get the job.