Whatever name you give it, Dressing is Emotional
Why? Because this particular, traditionally-American food embodies place, race, memories, holidays, hearth, and home.
It’s literally an experience fueled by the annals of time and passed-down experiences.
Most dressing recipes are passed down from dear ol’ mom, Abuela Maria, Nana Sophia, Aunt Told-ya-so, and the like. No two people seem to agree on what makes the perfect stuffing. Amazingly, many interesting family feuds have started over these “what-makes-a-great-stuffing” opinions at holiday time. Read one version right here.
Even the name your family or region calls this dish can evoke emotional feelings.
How did that come about?
It seems the term stuffing didn’t fit the decorum of the Victorian upper class, so they renamed it dressing. Today, it depends on where you live or from what country or region you originally hailed from whether you call it dressing, stuffing, or filling.
Jodi Lea Stewart’s Southern-Style Cornbread & Sausage Dressing
Personal note: It will always be dressing to this Southern gal. Why? Because I strongly identify with Texas and the South. See, that’s both emotional and personal, isn’t it?
Unless you make it from a box, Dressing is Personal
Why? Because this dish represents regional tastes and long-standing family traditions.
For example, Coastal folks love oysters and/or other seafood delights in their dressing. Check it out here.
Midwesterners like to use white bread or, sometimes, a combination of bread and cornbread in their stuffing. Check it out here.
Italians bring their love of sausage to the “dressing table.” Check it out here.
Pennsylvania Dutch, many with German heritage, love their potatoes. Check out this recipe for Pennsylvania Dutch “filling” here.
Scandinavians may use rye bread, pork, and dill. Check it out here.
How about a Mexican version using chorizo and cilantro? Check it out here.
I venture to say that every culture that settled in the United States has a different version of dressing or stuffing or filling. Combinations are endless.
One might say the side dish we all love and/or make at holiday times and special occasions represents every part of the world.
And… that makes dressing both emotional and personal.
A crazy memory…
Long ago, I prepared a Thanksgiving meal with my sister-in-law. Now, we were in our early twenties (I was twenty-one, actually) and usually got along great. However, we had a bit of a stare-off when it came to making the dressing early that morning. She was from New Orleans, and no way, naw suh, was she going to make dressing without oysters. And as sure as I was standing there clinging to my stubborn Southern roots, I was not making dressing without cornbread and sage!
Silly us. We compromised by using everything we both felt we had to have, and, unbelievably, it turned out quite delicious! Different… but tasty! Later, we sipped lime Kool-Aid laced with a touch of vodka and complimented ourselves. After all, we did all the work and had to clean up all the mess, too. So… that touch of vodka was kind of necessary, lol.
Lime Kool-Aid?
Yeah.
Boy, were we ever young!
One thing most of us can agree on is that we love our dressing or stuffing or filling sitting proud beside *or inside* the turkey, chicken, Cornish hens, or ham at Thanksgiving or Christmas. It’s comforting. It’s delicious. It’s traditional.
Viva la dressing!
Jodi Lea Stewart is a multi-award-winning fiction author who believes in and writes about the triumph of the human spirit via grit, humor, and stubborn tenacity. Her lifetime friendships with all nationalities, different social strata, cowpunchers, the Southern gentry, the California crazies (she was once one, too… well, sort of, lol!), not to mention outliers, allow Jodi to write comfortably about, oh… practically anything.
Novel #8, The Bulls of Bashan is debuting now.
I must warn you — the Book Trailer consumes ONE MINUTE and ONE SECOND of your life. View carefully… HERE!
