Turducken and tofurkey are so over. Say hello to the coolest (and, frankly, most terrifying) new food-combination trend: the Cthuken (also known as a Cthurkey). Before we explain to you what exactly a Cthuken is, you just need to look at it:
[tweet https://twitter.com/damana/status/412528192797151232%5D
Okay, sorry, we know that was utterly horrifying and nothing will ever be the same again. Twitter user Damana Madden posted the image on Twitter this week and, not surprisingly, it went viral, because look at it. Gothamist got to the bottom of this and found that it was actually crafted two years ago by a guy in Texas named Rusty Eulberg. The name is a reference to horror writer H. P. Lovecraft’s bizarre creature “Cthulhu.” Here’s the story:
According to Eulberg, he and wife Jennifer Robledo “wanted to do something unique for Christmas dinner with friends of ours. Jenny is a big fan of Cthulhu so we went and bought some crab legs and some octopus and bacon and cooked them all separate and slapped them together on a plate, and that was it. The next year I made a Cthicken; the same thing using squid instead of octopus and a chicken.”
This week, one of Eulberg’s friends told him that the Cthuken was resurfacing online — though he says he always referred to it as a Cthurkey since it doesn’t involve any duck. He tells Gothamist about how his guests responded to his creation:
The universal reaction was, ‘Oh my God, I couldn’t eat that.’ But each individual piece was cooked separately; all I did was set them together on the plate. It was delicious. The crab leg was awesome and the bacon added a nice flavor to the turkey. And for added horror, the serving platter is an old Nazi plate with a Swastika on the bottom that a friend bought in an old abandoned Luftwaffe base in Germany.
So next time you think your life is hard, just imagine being forced to eat a terrifying food-monster served on Nazi dinnerware (Nazi dinnerware!), and then you’ll really start to count your blessings.