Later this week Americans will gather with family and friends for a massive dinner most assuredly involving turkey. But what goes with the turkey, despite angry relatives, is a matter of where you live.
Is it stuffing or dressing?
Each word comes from a different etymological root, and Americans even disagree what each word defines. Butterball conducted a survey of 1,000 random people in nine different regions, finding that the majority of Americans call it stuffing. No region was more partial to calling it stuffing than New England, where 100% of respondents claimed it as such.
On the flip side, the East South Central Region (I don't know--ask Butterball where they got that name), which includes Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, all favor dressing as the word of choice. In total, only 11 states have a dressing majority--while everywhere else favors stuffing.
In 2013, Epicurious did a peak season term search for both stuffing and dressing, and largely found the same result. The only major anomaly Epicurious and Butterball differ on is the state of Nevada, where Butterball claims they call it dressing. But Epicurious says that stuffing is the third-most searched for term in Nevada, well ahead of dressing--so what does Butterball know? In the end, does anyone trust a Thanksgiving dinner cooked in Nevada? No. No they do not.
There's an old adage that stuffing is what goes inside a bird and dressing is what's cooked alongside, but there's no validity to back up up those definitions. The famed cookbook The Joy of Cooking, published continually since 1931, once made such a claim, simply throwing out that interpretation without any facts as to origin. The book's huge popularity potentially influenced generations to come nonetheless.
So what is the etymoligical history of each word? Let's look at both:
Stuffing:
As might be obvious, stuffing was created out of the verb "to stuff," while adding the suffix "-ing." The modern version was spoken between the 15th and 16th centuries, depending on which dictionary you want to rely upon, but no later than roughly 1538, when it appeared in print. The Middle English stuff comes from the Old French estoffe (furniture or material) and estoffer (equip or furnish). In turn, the Old French comes from the Greek stuphein (draw together).
Except some etymologists disagree, claiming stuffing really was born out of the Latin farcire, Which became the French farcir (stuff), which became the English farce. Regardless, all agree stuffing became the norm by the 1500s.
Dressing:
Like stuffing, dressing is created out of the verb "to dress" with the added suffix of "-ing," but appeared earlier than its counterpart. The Middle English dressen was popular between 1275-1325, evolving out of the Anglo-French dresser or drescier. That came from the very similar Old French drecier, itself evolved out of the Latin dīrēctus--following somewhat the same root as the modern word direct.
Still awake? Boiled down, stuffing comes from Greek (unless it comes from Latin), dressing comes from Latin (but it's definitely not Greek).
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Meanwhile, some cooks claim it's a matter of cornbread versus typical bread--with the dressing crowd using cornbread, and the stuffing masses using white bread.
Even historical food timelines seem at a loss as to how the schism in the word usage came about. The Oxford English Dictionary, which is usually reliable in such matters, describes dressing--with regard to food--as a stuffing.
In the end, the linguistic mystery of how a nation became divided really is a matter of what you choose to believe. Greek versus Latin, population ebbs and flows, cookbook influences--there's no concrete answer.
Whatever you want to believe, when it doubt, just call it Stove Top.
