Dressing vs. Stuffing?

[MakingSense]

So you STUFF the turkey with it. But in New Orleans we always called it dressing as do most Southerners it seems. Stove Top Stuffing is mass-market.

Is this regional? What do you call it? Is that what your family did?
Where do you live?

[Sherri]

You're going to hear a lot of answers and I believe the name will vary by geographic region - of both the poster and ancestors of the poster. I've lived on both coasts and in-between, currently in the southwest.

My family is a combination of various ancestry and we have always differentiated between what goes IN the turkey, calling it "stuffing" and what is baked OUTSIDE the turkey calling it "dressing". Yes, it can be the exact same thing but the name changes depending on where it cooks. I've found stuffing to be softer and more moist while the dressing can be crisped so we usually do it both ways.

[swsidejim]

Exactly, to me stuffing is cooked inside the bird, or whatever, and dressing is cooked seperately like in a casserole dish. But folks I know can call it either.

[Caitlin McGrath]

See, it wasn't until I started reading widely, and especially seeing it come up on internet discussion boards, that I even heard of dressing. I grew up on the west coast, but my mother's a New Yorker and my father's from Wisconsin, and in my family, it was always called stuffing, whether it was cooked in or out of the bird (we usually had both).

[Katie Nell]

Yeah, it's always been stuffing to me, but only in the bird over at one of my grandma's houses.

[Candy]

Always dressing in my family whether it was stuffed in to the bird or not. It was a side to dress the bird.

[MakingSense]

But where is everybody from? Where are your families from? Everyone in the US moves around so much now that we are losing regional distinctions in a lot of things.
Is there a regional basis for this?
Katie Nell? Candy?

[Katie Nell]

Midwest for me (Kansas, to be exact). Candy's from the south.

[Candy]

My family is southern and southwestern. I was an Air Force brat and lived in a lot of places. On my mother's side which is the dominant side when it comes to food, they were all old south who migrated west after "The Great Unpleasantness". No matter where we lived the cooking traditions lived on.

[Robert Lauriston]

Merriam-Webster:

"dressing" definition 2b: "a seasoned mixture usually used as a stuffing (as for poultry)."

"stuffing" definition 1c: "to prepare (meat or vegetables) by filling or lining with a stuffing."

I love turkey stuffing. I'll pass on the Hamburgerless Helper.

[phofiend]

Stuffing if inside, dressing if separate. But a few years ago, while in Lancaster county, PA, I heard it called "filling" even though it was baked in a casserole dish. Whatever you call it, it's my favorite part of the meal.

[Amuse Bouches]

We're a stuffing family, whether inside or out. I'm a Californian, as is my mother's family going back 3 generations, though they originally hailed from the midwest (Nebraska), and my dad's family is French Canadian, New England and midwestern.

[pikawicca]

Although I now bake it outside of the bird, I still call it "stuffing," as did my parents and grandparents. My mom's family hailed from Ireland, and I believe the usage over there is "stuffing."

[Karl S]

I grew up in the NY area, and it was stuffing regardless. I went to college in Virginia and encountered the distinction, which makes eminent sense. Have encountered it as well in eastern New England during the past generation.

[Robert Lauriston]

When I was a kid, my aunts called it stuffing, and it really was stuffing. There was just a little bit for everybody, and it was the highlight of the meal.

At some point they decided to respond to demand by baking a huge pan of dressing, which they called "stuffing." But they didn't fool me.

[MakingSense]

We can always count on you, RL, to find the essentials. Dressing cooked inside the bird soaks up the juices and has the incredible flavor which the casserole lacks.
For large groups, Mama started to mix the inside-the-bird dressing with the separately cooked oyster dressing, which was wonderful anyway. I do that now and it really makes a difference. And we have enough to go around since the turkey never holds enough.
You are right, the highlight of the meal. Not a side dish.

[Candy]

I just be sure to put gravy on the dressing and that satisfies me. No over cooked bird to get the stuffing cooked and the flavor is wonderful. My DH makes the worlds finest gravy.

[Will Owen]

My family (in southeastern Illinois) always called it dressing wherever it got cooked, which was usually in the bird. Grandma Owen always cooked two turkeys, one with plain bread dressing and one with oyster.

I personally prefer the taste of stuffed-inside stuffing (which is what I call it, even when...oh, never mind), but as the bits of it you'll never get out of the carcass make the broth all cloudy, I will do it in a casserole this year. Any dressing left in the carcass will also make it much more perishable, and as I'm always pretty tuckered out (and have had my share of the Beaujolais as well) by cleanup time I'd like the job to be as uncomplicated as possible.

[Karl S]

Another way to do it it with less risk of overcooking the turkey is to cut the bird in half and place the halves over the dressing in a large roasting pan.

[Will Owen]

Glad to see that someone else does that! Only thing is that the dressing needs to be really dry to start with or you're gonna wind up with a goopy mess. I did a whole pan of split Cornish hens on cornbread/sausage stuffing* the first time I had the notion to try this, and it was the most painless way to feed a bunch of people I've ever tried.

* You'll notice I managed to use BOTH words in this post! I'm easy...

[charmedgirl]

Born and raised Baltimore to parents of Italian and Irish ancestry. It was stuffing regardless of where it cooked. (And my mom usually did both, stuffing the bird and cooking some of the same mixture in a casserole dish, to make sure we had enough. We are a stuffing loving family!) Don't remember when I first encountered the term "dressing" but distinguishing the two based on where it's cooked makes, as someone said above, eminent sense to me, so I've started using both terms based on that distinction.

[Janet from Richmond]

In the bird = stuffing
Out of the bird = dressing

[Atahualpa]

Stuffing. Regardless of how ... .

Toronto
ON
Canada

[cackalackie]

It's always been dressing in my family. And we've always had it in the casserole dish, with gravy.

(North Cackalackie)

[Phoebe]

I've always known it as dressing. My parents are from upstate NY, I was raised in MD, I now live on the coast of NC. All three locations....it's called dressing. Maybe it's not a regional thing?

[charmedgirl]

Not everyone in MD calls it dressing! See above. I never heard that term until I got older. We called it stuffing regardless of where it cooked.

[Phoebe]

I never implied they did!!!

[charmedgirl]

Ok!!!!! ;-)

[Covert Ops]

Sure it is, sounds like Northeasterners call it stuffing, though most people I know from upstate NY grew up in a rural farming tradition not unlike Southerners, so maybe that accounts for your "dressing." :-)

[BobB]

In Boston: stuffing, regardless of where it's cooked. Dressing is the goop you put on salads. Period.

[Infomaniac]

Boston area also. I agree, stuffing regardless and dressing is for salad. I understand though other parts of the country call it different from where I was born and raised. Just like when you call ask for a tonic down south, they think you mean hair tonic, not soda or pop.

[Ratpackgrl]

I agree, here in KS, or at least in the North East, we call it Stuffing not dressing and we also think dressing is a topping for your salad. But that's what I grew up with. I'm an Army Brat and I don't ever remember anyone calling stuffing, dressing. I just found out today what the difference was.

[cannedmilkandfruitypebbles]

Yes, born and raised in massachusettes. Any bread product served with Turkey is STUFFING- in the bird, next to the bird, or on the floor after a slip on on some spilled canned cranberry sauce. It's always stuffing.

[rtmonty]

In Texas, it's dressing, plain and simple.

[danhole]

I don't really agree with that. When I lived up north (Indiana, Illinois, Ohio) they called it dressing. When we moved back to Texas (Houston) it was called stuffing. But I really don't think it matters!

[280 Ninth]

In Rhode Island, where I grew up, and in NYC, where I live now, we call it stuffing...my wild rice stuffing recipe is done outside the bird, but with turkey stock, and it works for me.

[Mick Ruthven]

In central Missouri my family called it dressing wherever it was placed. We did usually fix all of it in casseroles and made way more of it than could ever fit in a turkey. It's still my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal (with gravy of course).

[Pat Hammond]

When I lived in St. Louis, I called it "dressing". If I went back to the upper East Coast for Thanksgiving, I reverted to calling it "stuffing".

[czaplin]

I think the Stuffing/Dressing dilemma is similar to the Sprinkles/Jimmies dilemma.

[Covert Ops]

YES!!!! :-D

[charmedgirl]

Ditto this! First time I heard "Jimmies" I was like, wha-what?!?

[BobB]

Not a dilemma at all, just the delightful remnants of regional variations crumbling under the influence of broadband communications and the homogenizing effects of fast food chains.

Consider also: milkshake/frappe, sub/hero/hoagie, soda/pop/tonic.

[Caitlin McGrath]

No, not a dilemma, but I also don't think the regional variations are crumbling so much. People all over the country understand what is meant by "milkshake" and "soda," and fast food chains may all call them chocolate sprinkles, but the regionalisms remain - it's still pop in the Midwest, tonic in Boston, Coke in parts of the south, and sub/hero/hoagie depending on where you are.

And in fact, the influence of broadband communication is amazingly instructive in the fascinating and, as you say, delightful, regional variations in food terminology. I've spent my whole life in California and NYC, where most of the terms are the same, and it has been from reading converstaions online, mostly on Chowhound, that I've learned about the generic uses of frappe, tonic, and Coke in other parts of the country, as well as other regionalisms I'd had no idea about.

[tatamagouche]

Honestly, lived in Boston 10 years, never heard "tonic" except in re tonic water. Where does that come from? A particular area? Eg "Lake District lingo," which I never quite understood?

I see this post is 2 years old, but still....

[BobB]

As a native Bostonian in his 50s I can vouch for the fact that when I was growing up tonic was the universally used term for all carbonated soft drinks. But as I said in my post above (from two years ago), the rise of fast food chains has convinced the younger generation that it's all soda, and now you're unlikely to hear the word tonic outside of an order for a G & T.

[jgg13]

We moved to Boston when I was young, in the early-mid 80s. By that point of time the whole "tonic"/"frappe"/etc lingo seemed to be mostly contained to the older townies.

[MoxieBoy]

I remember hearing the term "phosphate" for soda in Chicago in the early 70s.

(But then, they also had Red Hots, White Hots, Smoked Thuringer, and my fave...direct from Racine...Kringles. A different language back there)

[DonShirer]

As a kid in Ohio it was always stuffing, but then as I recall, it was always stuffed.

This thread may have been inspired by Mark Bittner's article on the same topic in the NY Times this week. The stuffing/dressing distinction seems to make sense.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/15/din...

[Yaqo Homo]

Loved this article! Mark Bittman is an idol of mine, and I read his column religiously.

I heartily recommend the recipes from his recent stuffing/dressing piece.

A few years ago, I started making his James Beard-inspired fresh bread stuffing (technically a "dressing") every Thanksgiving and Christmas and received copious accolades from family and friends. Now, we rarely go back to stuffing.

[spigot]

I'm pretty sure we called it dressing when I was a kid (southeastern Ontario small town, parents' parents from the UK). But now we call it stuffing.

I'd always figured it was a Briticism my family dropped over time - like, when I was little, we used to say chesterfield for sofa and cupboard for closet. But maybe not...........?

................

Okay I've googled now....

From http://homecooking.about.com/od/foodh...

"The term stuffing first appears in English print in 1538. After 1880, it seems the term stuffing did not appeal to the propriety of the Victorian upper crust, who began referring to it as dressing. Nowadays, the terms stuffing and dressing are used interchangeably, with stuffing being the term of preference in the South and East portions of the United States."

But KnightRidder in Georgia says this:

"Southerners think cornbread dressing is the food - or at least the side dish - of the gods, while Yankees think stuffing is the only way to go."

And Mark Bittman in the NY Times says:

"STUFFING, as I’ve been informed by friends from the South, is properly called dressing when you cook it outside the bird."

And finally, from the BBC:

"The third [Thanksgiving] essential is stuffing, often called 'dressing' in the US."

[Mick Ruthven]

In other words, no agreement at all on where/how the two versions came from or are used :-) I guess we'll just have to keep using what we grew up with...

[Blush]

I'm in Southwestern Ontario, also with UK ancestry, and we always called it dressing. Now stuffing seems to be used a bit more often. We also used to say chesterfield, but nobody I know would say "sofa"; it's a "couch". Also "serviette" instead of "napkin", but that's also going by the wayside.

[jackrugby]

Northern NJ - stuffing, both inside and outside.

[sivyaleah]

Stuffing, no matter if it's in or out. Bird was always "stuffed" growing up, but we now serve it along-side.

I don't think I heard the word "dressing" until I was well into adulthood.

Brooklyn, born and bred.
NJ currently.

[adrient]

I was born in the south, raised in Upper New York and returned to the south and have lived here for the past 25 years. It's funny because my wife & In-laws are from NYC and this very discussion came up over Thanksgiving dinner. I agree with many of the ideas offered concerning this yet I have another thought to consider. Living both in the south & north I have found that stuffing is made with bread whereas dressing (traditional) is made with cornbread. Don't forget to pass the "Giblet" gravy! ';-)

[aussiewonder]

Until a couple of days ago i'd never heard of 'dressing' and until i moved to the US i never knew of stuffing outside of the bird. I'm from Australia and my mother's family is English/Scottish decent (Dad is Malaysian) and we always stuffed our chicken or turkey with a stuffing that has a different texture than I've been eating here; more moist and dense, basically we take the bread and oven dry it and then hand crumble it and mix it with herbs, fruit, broth etc... as opposed to the stuffing I've eaten here which seems to be made from chunks of bread and sausage meat with herbs and broth.

[Lucia]

Stuffing, even though it never goes in the bird. My parents live in VA. My fiance's from NH and he also grew up calling it stuffing.

[Dressingpuzzle]

From Los Angeles, but my family is from Texas! Mom always stuffed the inside of the turkey AND she placed dressing all around the turkey - boy that was some great tastin' dressing!

I just thought about the above. I'm too chicken to try stuffing the turkey -- I don't know, the older folks knew how to cook just right!

[BiZeMommy]

I'm not sure if it is regional or not but in the different generations called it different things. My grandmother calls it dressing and my mother calls it stuffing.
I think stove top stuffing is gross. (But that is MY PERSONAL opinion.) I was raised making your own dressing to go into a bird is best. I PERSONALLY think it is a waist of time a tastes slimey in the end. I make for the traditional sense. So my kids see that I do the same as my mother and grandmother before me. Doesn't mean that I eat it either..

[Cheflambo]

If it is cooked inside the bird its stuffing; If its baked in a casserole, its "dressing", and hardly worth eating (IMHO). Stove Top Stuffing? Don't even GO there..... ugh!!!

And if that "bread casserole" is "dressing" .... what is that stuff you put on your salad???

[c oliver]

I grew up in Atlanta and we always had pan "dressing." I prefer it because you get lots of crunchies from the baking. But my mother used stock made from the giblets, her homemade cornbread. Basically the same thing that would have been stuffing but just not put in the bird.

[dalaimama]

My mother is from Monroe, LA and she always called it dressing. (Must be cornbread and no sage!) But she also never stuffed the turkey. We like the crispy edges the dressing gets in the pan.

[Chew on That]

We call it stuffing in Chicago/the Midwest but I have definitely seen it referred to as dressing many times over.

I find the term dressing confusing because I think of salad dressing which is VERY different.

[Super Salad]

Raised in MD of a Long Island mother and a OK father. Stuffing. Always stuffing regardless of where it came from. I first heard "dressing" in college in upstate NY in the dining hall on turkey dinner night. I was confused. I put dressing on salad and wondered if it was different than stuffing. It isn't.

[phimoez]

I am born and raised in upstate NY and the only person that I have ever heard call it dressing was my Great Grandma whom I lived with until college. She called the whole process "dressing the bird" and anything that she put in there was considered dressing.

[joyfulwrites]

I live in the beautiful hills of Southern Indiana. I say that because you may call Indiana the north, south, east, west, or midwest. I make dressing the same way my mother and grandmother did.

I've always eaten dressing with turkey. I only make it once a year @ Thanksgiving, my favorite time of year.

It's not tthe same thing as stuffing, although I do put some of it in the turkey, as well as in the pan the turkey sits in. c_oliver called it pan dressing, and that fits. It's dressing - dresses the bird. I use white bread with crusts that is torn into pieces, mixed with broth and meat from the giblets, raw egg, sauteed celery and onions, sometimes oysters, and lots of seasonings. It does make the best crusty bread around the edges of the pan, and I scrape the sides down to stir in the crust at least once, so there will be lots of yummy crusties. Gosh, I can't wait.

Oh, and I'm VERY Southern. My ancestors came from Virginia and the Carolinas in very early 1800s, and they brought as much of the spirit as the could with them.

[mcc]

Always dressing and never stuffed in the bird.

[laliz]

Growing up in NW Pennsylvania, it was always stuffing and it was always cooked in the bird. It was never never ever cornbread.

Now that I live in California it is always dressing, still always cooked in the bird and still never never never never ever cornbread.

English/Scottich descent.

Salad dressing is for salads.
Soda is for carbonated beverages.
I grocery shop at the market aka grocery store
I use a cart.
Put groceries in a bag.

For those afraid to cook their stuffing/dressing in the bird, did you ever know ANY one who got sick or died from eating cooked in the bird dressing/stuffing?

Use a product called stuffing sack. Works perfectly and there is not one morsel of dressing/stuffing remaining in turkey carcass. And the stuffing/dressing is so superior, why wouldn't you?

[Boccone Dolce]

From NJ, and it's always called stuffing but I have never had it stuffed in the turkey.

I like my stuffing very meaty and busy and kind of crisp. Husband likes it moist but not wet-wet-wet. There will be gravy involved either way. It was never referred to as dressing in our family. Mom used to shove cut apples, stalks of celery, onions, herbs, citrus, wads of newspaper (kidding-my list was getting long) inside the bird and if she had pulled stuffing out of there I think we may have freaked out a little.

[MoxieBoy]

In NY and NJ, stuffing you have with a turkey. Dressing you put on a salad. (Who ever heard of Salad Stuffing?)

[rockandroller1]

Always stuffing, everyone I've known and rarely actually cooked inside the bird. Born and raised in NE Ohio.

[ibstatguy]

I LOVE our turkey "dressing", here in San Diego, with Andouille sausage...

[jfood]

Growing up in NJ jfood always had stuffing.

When it was served, his mother asked him if he wanted stuffing from the bird or from the Pyrex. He was probably 20 years old when he learned the difference of in bird = stuffing; in pyrex = dressing.

[MMRuth]

That's my understanding of the difference too - family from SW PA.

[c oliver]

My family also in Atlanta. I like dressing cause it's got more texture.

[nofunlatte]

Well, I grew up in Pennsylvania Dutch country and it was referred to as "stuffing" or (adding a regional variant here) "filling". Yes, the PA Dutch make a dish called potato filling, which is essentially a tasty potato casserole cooked outside a bird, but the stuff inside the turkey was also often referred to as "filling". I think it probably comes from the Pennsylvania Dutch language, a variant of German originating with immigrants from the Rhineland-Palatinate region of what is now Germany. Fuellung is German for filling and both are pronounced somewhat similarly. So, to me it's always been "filling". My parents aren't PA Dutch (they are actually German immigrants), but plenty of our Dutchified neighbors called it "filling".

[c oliver]

We have a new son-in-law who likes the bird stuffed and I like pan dressing. This sounds SO basic but do I need to add or delete anything if I both stuff the bird and bake some separately. Would one need to be drier than the other? He also wants rolls but our daughter is in charge of that. I don't DO rolls :)

[Jacquilynne]

My mother usually pours part of a can of chicken stock over the stuffing she bakes (we're a very stuffing oriented family, and there's not enough room in our turkey for the amount of stuffing we'd like to eat) -- it gives it more of that poultry umami that it would otherwise have gotten from the turkey, and keeps it from drying out.

[BobB]

I do the same thing, only these days I use the organic stock that comes in those cardboard cartons.

[c oliver]

I think this is a good idea. I remember my mother's dressing was on the wet side and, upon baking, firmed up. Thanks for your help

[marietinn]

My family calls it stuffing, regardless of whether its stuffed in the bird or baked in a casserole dish (i prefer what others might call dressing, it gets all crunchy on top, YUM). My mum is from Virginia and my father is from Queens, but both call it stuffing.

[TripChick]

Stuffing (inside or out, doesn't matter). Perhaps it's my Midwestern upbringing.

[paulj]

I heard in passing on a FN TDay help show that 'dressing' was a Victorian era polite substitute for vulgar sounding 'stuffing'.

I wonder if replies on this thread confirm that. For example, did hounds inherit the use of 'dressing' from their educated great aunt, and 'stuffing' from their Pennsylvania Dutch great grand father?

[thew]

1st generation american in new york:

always stuffing, wherever it's cooked