For John Wellen, Thanksgiving became pretty much the perfect holiday a few years back.

That's when he discovered he didn't have to stop eating those small square hamburgers known affectionately as "sliders" served at White Castle restaurants just because he was having turkey at his parents' house.

And he started making his special turkey stuffing. Slider stuffing.

"It's excellent," said Wellen, 28, of Forest Park, a suburb of Chicago. "We were amazed how much we liked it and we've been making it ever since."

Wellen is part of a small but devoted army of White Castle aficionados who love the burgers so much they make the trip the day before Thanksgiving or that morning, order a sack of sliders -- without pickles, of course -- and turn them into an integral part of their Thanksgiving celebration.

"You get a couple of extra so you can eat them," advised Wellen, who as a systems engineer knows something about problem solving.

The stuffing is, not surprisingly, the brainchild of a White Castle employee.

Eleven years ago, Kim Bartley crafted the recipe by using her grandmother's stuffing as a starting point, but subbing the burgers for the sausage her grandmother used. For every pound of turkey, she used one slider -- a name the company has trademarked, although it spells it "Slyder."

Want to try it yourself? Here, straight from the White Castle Web site, is your recipe:

(Oh, and for those of you, like me, marooned in cities without a White Castle, the Slyders sold in the freezer case of your local grocer are quite tasty and usable here.)

10 White Castle hamburgers, no pickles
1 ½ cups celery, diced
1 ¼ tsp. ground thyme
1 ½ tsp. ground sage
½ tsp. coarsely ground black pepper
¼ c. chicken broth

In a large mixing bowl, tear the burgers into pieces and add diced celery and seasonings. Toss and add chicken broth. Toss well. Stuff cavity of turkey just before roasting. Makes about 9 cups (enough for a 10- to 12-pound turkey). Note: Allow 1 hamburger for each pound of turkey, which will be the equivalent of ¾ cup of stuffing per pound.

Of course, "exotic" stuffings are nothing new. That gaping hole in a dressed turkey has invited all manner of culinary inventiveness over the centuries.

Ever had fruit in your stuffing? There are recipes out there for everything from fairly rational fruits like raisins and currants all the way up to full-bore oddity like mango and durian.

Stuffing meat with more meat is popular, especially down South. There are all manner of sausage stuffings, oyster dressings and the like. Turducken fans will no doubt be familiar with the Cajun jambalaya stuffings very popular in those creations. You haven't lived, according to many Cajuns, until you've had a turducken stuffed to the gills with spicy shrimp jambalaya.

Also in the Cajun vein, although not done by Cajun method, is Blackened Turkey. While you may not want to follow the recipe, it's worth a read.

Perhaps the oddest, though, are certain recipes calling for UNPOPPED popcorn to be used, in fairly good quantities, as part of the stuffing. There are dozens of different versions, but they all end with the turkey's hindquarters being blown off by exploding popcorn to indicate the bird being done.

Allow me to be a food nerd for just a moment and point out that, if the stuffing reaches the proper temperature to cause the popcorn to pop, the bird will be a carbonized hulk, probably immune to explosion, fire or blunt instrument.

Got a weird or unusual stuffing recipe? Drop us a line..