Thanksgiving poll - Dressing or Stuffing?

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

@G Low

Yep !
My Mother and Grandmother always seemed more concerned about the boiled hen and the chopped/boiled eggs ... than the roasted turkey.

Also ... I caught their wrath for trying to sneak a piece of the cornbread before they started mixing and baking everything into "dressing".

 

[7th Texas Mounted Rifles]

We always used 'dressing' for the cornmeal based version… and 'stuffing' for the other.

Either way, it is my absolute favorite part of the thanksgiving meal. The stuffing we have has an excess of celery, onion, and pork sausage mixed in and is delicious.

I come from colonial Massachusetts and Texan roots… it gets pretty exotic around the supper (not dinner) table sometimes.

Breakfast could be omelets with mushrooms and scrapple one day, then sunny-side up eggs with panfried squirrel/backstrap/sweetbread/etc the next.

 

[Gandycreek]

oyster Stuffing for sure !

 

[Dusty]

Stuffing, and I grew up in the farm country of south eastern Pennsylvania. A dairy farm.

 

[BCS1973]

Stuffing. Some called it filling, but that was interchangeable. One side of the family was from Philly, the other side from South Central PA (Fulton and Huntington Counties). Beet Pickled Eggs were a staple at just about every gathering on the Fulton County side. When I went south I was astonished to learn that pickled eggs weren't purple.

Where I live now, it's mostly stuffing, but dressing is interchangeable. We also have Corn Pudding down here to go along with the stuffing.

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

Either way, it is my absolute favorite part of the thanksgiving meal.

Mine too !

I'll eat turkey, but I'm not a big fan of the bird
(Unless it's a juicy slow smoked Texas version)

But yeah ... the cornbread dressing is absolutely my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal as well.

 

[Allyn]

I come from colonial Massachusetts and Texan roots… it gets pretty exotic around the supper (not dinner) table sometimes.

It's good to know that I am not the only person that still calls the evening meal "supper." In my childhood, dinner was something that was only served about noon on Sunday.

 

[Pollaco]

My wife said if it's made from white/light bread it's stuffing. If it's made from cornbread it's dressing.So dressing it is. Who am I to argue?

 

[Cato3rd]

Do you call that stuffing? Or do you call it dressing? And where did you grow up?

It's stuffing and grew up in NJ. But we do use a southern pork chop gravy that's thickened with sour cream instead of the traditionally lighter Turkey gravy

 

[Gary Morgan]

I think it's stuffing if it's cooked in the bird and dressing if cooked in a separate pan on the side.

 

[DaveBrt]

It is stuffing if you stuffed the bird with it; if you did not stuff, then it is dressing. We often have both.

Today, we had Bojangles Supremes. Bojangles was the only place open for lunch (except Waffle House) and I had just picked up my wife after an unplanned 3 1/2 day stay in the hospital. She is cured and doing well, but no Thanksgiving Dinner.

 

[lupaglupa]

Traditionally, stuff was literally stuffed inside the turkey carcass for cooking. Dressing was, I presume, cooked alongside the turkey instead of inside.

This is what my family always believed, and I see many people make that same distinction.

My wife said if it's made from white/light bread it's stuffing. If it's made from cornbread it's dressing.

I think that may be because cornbread is the traditional Southern base and dressing is the traditional Southern term.

My Mother believed that Southerners made dressing instead of stuffing because of health reasons. In a cold climate you can stuff a bird and set it aside but in the South it's still warm in November. Doing the dressing and the turkey separately meant less time for raw poultry and a mixture of bread and eggs to sit at room temperature. I don't know it that's true.

 

[G Low]

oyster Stuffing for sure !

We also had a pan of oyster dressing. It was the same recipe with oysters added. Most people would stay away from the oyster dressing but Grandaddy always wanted it and after he passed, we always made a pan and ate it just to remember him ..

 

[Jamieva]

We had dressing with giblet gravy. Stuffing is actually stuffed inside the turkey or chicken. (Unless it's stovetop) Dressing never goes into the bird. It's made from cornbread, biscuits chicken or turkey broth, celery onions, eggs, and sage ( not too much) among other ingredients.

This!!!

 

[lupaglupa]

We also had a pan of oyster dressing. It was the same recipe with oysters added. Most people would stay away from the oyster dressing but Grandaddy always wanted it and after he passed, we always made a pan and ate it just to remember him ..

My father's mother made oyster dressing. I don't many people ate it!

 

[donna]

My Aunt always made oyster dressing. She brought every Thanksgiving we were all together. Many wonderful memories from those days.

 

[Cornpone and Molasses]

Taylor Ham. Sorry I couldn't resist being from NJ.
Stuffing of course…

 

[LCYingling3rd]

It is called stuffing where I am from in Maryland and also in my adopted home of Pennsylvania. I like the sausage stuffing but many like the potato bread stuffing. Dressing is what we put on salads - I like blue cheese dressing, but I have been on a Thousand Island dressing kick for a while.

Thanksgiving dinner has always been a favorite of mine, however, the weird thing is that we grew up having sauerkraut with our thanksgiving dinner. My mother is from Martinsburg, WV and my father is from Baltimore, MD and that is both of their families tradition. No one beyond the Mid-Atlantic seems to do that. Maybe just Maryland and West Virginia? Many of the German families in southern PA, MD and WV came in through the ports of Philadelphia and Baltimore. My mother's Stuckey's (Stookey) and my father's Yingling's (Jungling) both arrived in Philadelphia. Maybe that is the connection? I was laughed at by everyone in Pennsylvania and my daughter freaked out when she began dating a man from Maryland and he did the sauerkraut at Thanksgiving too. She realized, yes, it's a thing. PA people say no, it doesn't go with Thanksgiving dinner, but a sauerkraut and Pork dinner is their go to New Years Day tradition!

Fun thread. It is fun seeing what everyones differing traditions are.

 

[BCS1973]

Taylor Ham. Sorry I couldn't resist being from NJ.
Stuffing of course…

I could really go for some pork roll this morning

 

[bayouace]

My wife and her family love cornbread dressing, and I, being from SW Louisiana, love rice dressing, so she does both deliciously.