engastration /en-ga-STRAY-shən/. noun. A method of cooking in which one animal is stuffed inside the other, most often fowl-in-fowl. The most famous example is the turducken (a deboned chicken stuff inside a deboned duck which is stuffed inside a turkey), but there are many variations including the Pandora’s Cushion (a goose stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a quail), gooducken (goose stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken) and the turbacon which is made of “a 20-pound pig with an 8-pound turkey, a 6-pound duck, a 4-pound chicken, a Cornish game hen, a quail, lots of bacon, 6 pounds of butter and a splash of Dr Pepper.” Sign me up.
“Upon particular occasions, a wild boar used to be dressed whole and stuffed with all kinds of animals, one within another; this dish was called the Trojan Horse […] The passion for engastration seems to have had its admirers in all ages.” (The School for Good Living)
“…if there is any philosophic engastration, it may be the geometric discourse that contains the metaphoric one by making it possible and by lending meaning to its terms.” (James Elkins)
“The cherpumple [a three-layer cake with cherry, pumpkin and apple pies baked in] is a sweet variation on engastration…” (Josh Friedland)
“Not satisfied with merely cramming creatures into one another for the consumption of their masters and mistresses by means of what is now known as ‘engastration’, Tudor cooks can also be credited with physically combining animals for their feasts by a process of culinary grafting. Perhaps the most famous example of such mind-boggling creativity is the so-called ‘cockentrice’, which was produced by sewing a pig’s upper body on to the bottom half of a capon or turkey.” (John Matusiak)