How do you like your combination of bread, stock, and vegetables on the Thanksgiving table?
By Denise Clay-Murray
On Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, most of us will be heading to the houses of loved ones and starting off “Stretchy Pants Season” by sitting in front of a table piled high with foods that you probably shouldn’t eat every day.
We can agree on most things when it comes to that table. The macaroni and cheese must be baked and not include anything closely resembling a vegetable. That video from the Food Network show, “The Kitchen,” where the mac and cheese got Brussels sprouts and butternut squash thrown into it, traumatized more than a few of us.
If you are making a green bean casserole, it must be seasoned, and fresh green beans are better than canned.
Sweet potato pie. That’s all that needs to be said.
And if you’re serving a combination of bread, vegetables, and stock, be versatile.
Yes, folks, we’re discussing talking about the debate between stuffing and dressing.
As I do with most food debates, I went to my Facebook page to see if folks were #TeamStuffing or #TeamDressing and why. But before I get into that, let’s talk about the similarities and differences between “dressing” and “stuffing.”.
Honestly, there aren’t many. Dressing is made with bread, stock, and veggies. So is stuffing. Some add turkey giblets to the combination.
Others use sausage. Some use stale bread or bread cubes, while others, like myself, are partial to cornbread as a base.
The main difference is in where this combination is baked. If it’s baked inside the turkey, the way my friend Phil likes it, it’s stuffing.
“Turkey oils drip into the stuffing during cooking, flavors it and keeps it moist…..yes!”
“If it’s a good stuffing, you don’t even need gravy,” according to my friend Richard.
My friend Tiffany uses chorizo sausage as a part of her stuffing.
“Team stuffing here!” she said. I’ll actually undercook the stuffing so it doesn’t get too mushy while it cooks in the oven.”
But dressing is cooked outside the bird. It’s usually what’s left over when you can’t fit all of your mixture of bread, veggies, and stock in the bird, or at least that’s how it used to be.
Now, you have a lot of folks who’d rather eat it that way.
“Team dressing, please,” my friend Shauna said. “Big fan of the crust it develops, and it stays firm, unlike the potato salad-like consistency that stuffing offers. Plus, stuffing invites food poisoning which kinda gives holiday memories I like to avoid.”
Yep. Stuffing the turkey can lead to you and your family taking a group portrait in the emergency room, according to the website Delish.
Delish. Salmonella is an issue when eating undercooked things inside a cavity like the inside of a turkey.
For stuffing to be safely eaten, it has to reach 165 degrees internal temperature to kill any bacteria that might be inside the turkey. To get it to that point, you’re going to have to overcook the turkey. And no one wants a dry turkey.
Besides, stuffing only makes sense if your concern is aesthetics, my friend Danyl says.
“Stuffing is only interesting if you’re going to “present” the bird for show,” she said. “Ain’t nobody doing that. I slice the bird before it hits the table. So, you would just take the stuffing out and put it on a plate anyway, and you wouldn’t get all the crispy goodness and additional flavor that making dressing gives you.”
In the end, what matters is taste and texture.
And gravy. Can’t forget about gravy.
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