Something Different for Thanksgiving

Something Different for Thanksgiving. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. If you are like me you just can't wait until the smells of the roasting turkey and stuffing permeate the house. Most Americans probably have basically the same Thanksgiving dinner year after year. So maybe this is the year to mix it up a little. Instead of a standard turkey, perhaps this year you'll be adventurous and try a turducken. Chris Catlett of Hebert's Specialty Cajun Meats in Houston, Texas, explains what that is. CATLETT: We start off with a 16-18 pound turkey, we debone it except for the last two joints in the wings and then we lay it out flat and then we season it and then we'll put a layer of one of the dressings. Our standard dressing is ground pork, onions, bell peppers and our blend of seasonings. The next layer would be our boneless, skinless duck. And then we put another layer of dressing, then we put our boneless deboned chicken and then a layer of our cornbread dressing. Pull that all together and then we sew it up, season the outside and vacuum pack it. But if you like a good, old-fashioned turkey, U.S. Rice Federation's Shaily Jariwala suggests trying something new to stuff the bird. JARIWALA: Rice stuffing is an ideal alternative for bread stuffing, especially for those who are gluten-intolerant. You can use any variety of rice, like enriched white rice or even brown rice that will give some added nutrients and extra fiber and since rice is a pantry staple you may already have some leftover rice on hand which would make your stuffing easier and quicker to prepare and a great canvas for several ingredients like herbs and spices, celery and onions, all of the items in a traditional stuffing. Or if you're really bold, you'll try Wisconsin cranberry grower Ann Grygleski's suggestion. GRYHLESKI: We do a fun thing around this time of year with fresh cranberries and that's caramel covered cranberries, just like we would for caramel apples. We dip the cranberries in caramel and just eat them raw like that. Economist John Anderson answers the question, where do sweet potatoes come from? ANDERSON: There are four primary producing states for sweet potatoes. North Carolina is by far the biggest sweet potato-producing state in the country and that's been fairly consistent for many years actually. Following North Carolina we have Mississippi, Louisiana and California and those sort of swap places in ranking from year to year. Total acreage of sweet potatoes, if you look at this year's plantings, is just under 114,000 acres of sweet potatoes. So a fairly minor crop compared to something like corn where we have tens of millions of acres. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.