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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.

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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.

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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 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."

What's your temperature?

That's the question of the hour. The Ebola virus has made taking your temperature part of everyday conversation. People in West Africa are doing it. People returning from the region are doing it. And so are the overly paranoid in the United States.

For anyone who's been exposed to the virus, a body temperatures of 100.4 or higher has been deemed the point of concern. The goal, of course, is that magic number: 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

Except 98.6 degrees isn't so magical after all. In fact, that might not be your normal temperature.

For insights into the range of temperatures we can experience, we consulted with Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior associate at the Center for Health Security at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and Dr. Benjamin Levine, a professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center who knows a thing or two about fever (his specialty is exercise science).

For Ebola, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature for which medical attention is necessary.

When Ebola is not a factor, Levine defines 101.5 degrees Fahrenheit as a serious fever. (Although he notes that you could register a lower temperature and still be harboring an infection.)

These high temperatures can actually save your life. If you have an infection or virus, your body's response is to raise your internal temperature to kill it off. In other words, fever is your body's defense against whatever is making you feel sick. So before you take fever reducers like Tylenol or aspirin, you may want to consider letting your body do its job, says Levine.

"Lowering the temperature with Tylenol doesn't help you fight infection," he says. "It just masks it. But if the patient is shivering, shaking, sweating, you may want to lower [the temperature] for comfort reasons."

Baseline normal temperatures differ from person to person and from day to day. But if you're worried about what your thermometer is telling you, here are some points of interest, from the low to the very, very high.

56.7 degrees: Anna Bagenholm, a Swedish medical student, spent 80 minutes under ice after a skiing accident in Norway in 1999. When she was rescued, her body temperature was 56.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Although she was clinically dead, resuscitation efforts were successful and she now has only minor nerve damage. (Do not try this at home).

95 degrees: Initial signs of hypothermia set in, such as shivering, dizziness, confusion and increased heart rate, says Adalja.

98.6 degrees: This is the generally accepted "normal" temperature, though different people can have different "normals" and even the same person's temperature can vary throughout the day and still be considered normal. Temperature is lower in the morning, since you're less active, and women tend to have slightly (less than half a degree) higher baseline temperatures than men. A 1992 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association measured the temperature of 148 adults four times a day for three consecutive days. The mean was 98.2 degrees.

97-99 degrees: This is what most doctors would describe as the normal temperature range, according to Levine.

100.4 degrees: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified 100.4 as the benchmark for concern about Ebola. Depending on an individual's normal baseline and Ebola-related symptoms, a triple-digit temperature in the context of Ebola is cause for concern.

101.5 degrees: Anything at or above this level is classified as a serious fever, says Levine: "Lower doesn't mean you don't have an infection, but that's when you've crossed a threshold of concern."

107 degrees: Multiple organ failure can occur, and the high temperature itself might bring on seizures. But Adalja says hospitals in the U.S. wouldn't let it get to this point: you'd be treated with fever reducers and cooling blankets.

115 degrees: On July 10, 1980, 52-year-old Willie Jones of Atlanta was admitted to the hospital with heatstroke and a temperature of 115 degrees Fahrenheit. He spent 24 days in the hospital and survived. Jones holds the Guinness Book of World Records honor for highest recorded body temperature.

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Global Health

The United States has transferred five detainees being held at its prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Georgia and Slovakia.

As The Wall Street Journal reports, four of the men are Yemeni, and that is important because they are the first Yemeni prisoners to be transferred since 2010. The newspaper explains:

"The U.S. banned transfers of Yemeni detainees to Yemen after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , a Nigerian man, attempted to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day 2009 with an underwear bomb made by a Yemen-based terror group.

"Yemeni detainees are the largest group in Guantanamo, and transferring those detainees from the prison remains an obstacle to closing it, according to human rights advocates.

"There now are 143 men held at Guantanamo, including 84 Yemen nationals, according to the Pentagon. Of the Yemenis held at the prison, 54 are eligible to be transferred from Guantanamo and have been cleared for release, the Pentagon said."

If you remember, President Obama has repeatedly vowed to close the Guantanamo prison, but congressional Republicans have opposed those attempts.

Despite that, as The Associated Press explains, Congress eased restrictions on transferring detainees to countries willing to keep an eye on them.

The AP adds:

"A number of resettlements are expected in the coming weeks. U.S. State Department envoy Clifford Sloan has been trying to persuade countries to accept prisoners, and he praised Georgia and Slovakia.

" 'We are very grateful to our partners for these generous humanitarian gestures,' Sloan said. 'We appreciate the strong support we are receiving from our friends and allies around the globe.'

"Georgia took three prisoners from Guantanamo in 2010. Slovakia has taken a total of eight men from Guantanamo."

Yemen

Guantanamo Bay