Comment of the Day: Stuffing vs. Dressing
Why is "dressing" more appropriate for [the dish] when baked in a casserole pan? The term "dressing" could be equally read to imply "to dress," as in it dresses something...Just as the bird is stuffed with it, the bird is dressed (up) with it. —Lorenzo
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5 Comments:
"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." [from about.com]
petitesoeur at 7:29PM on 11/20/09
Great! I'll now dispense with my well-meaning efforts to explain that my stuffing is really dressing. I'm curious how many of those who call it dressing are not from the east or south.
lemonfair at 7:29AM on 11/21/09
Dressing is a general term for items served around a main item.
As in BLANK with all the dressing.
Stuffing means, duh, something stuffed into something else.
peekpoke at 10:05PM on 11/21/09
@peekpoke: I agree, which is why I asked why someone would think that the term "dressing" is any more appropriate than "stuffing" for something that sits in a casserole and is never served around a main item. What determines whether something is dressing is whether it is served around, on, or in a main item. Whether it dresses the main item by oozing out of the breast cavity on the serving dish or by being transferred from a separate casserole onto the serving dish to surround the bird, it is still dressing. So, maybe what I meant is that stuffing is a sub-category of dressing.
Lorenzo at 9:39PM on 11/22/09
The Oxford English Dictionary supports the idea of stuffing as a subcategory of dressing. I was as intrigued (or maybe annoyed) as you were with the dead-set conviction of some of the authors here that stuffing was within a bird and dressing without, so I did some research. Looking at 19th century cookbooks I found a lot more ambiguity in the terms. I wrote a post about what I found on my blog (it's pretty long, which is why I'm doing this shameless self-promotion instead of just pasting in the results): http://marthaandtom.com/2009/11/stuffing-or-dressing/.
Tombolo at 11:46PM on 11/22/09