In Defense of Stove Top Stuffing
I can't think about the holidays without thinking about 2003. It's the year I was stuffing-shamed. After declaring to the kids at school that our family's stuffing was Stove Top, I was promptly informed that it was not stuffing, and that I was wrong. Kids are mean! But it meant the boxed stuff I knew and loved was no longer good. And the real thing-what I knew to be some concoction of bread and vegetables and stock-I had to have it. That year, my aunt gave it her best shot. It came out green. And as we sat around the dinner table staring at, well, whatever was in that bowl, we wondered why we ever even tried to begin with.
Everyone seems to have a special memory or a recipe resulting from a special family touch on the holiday staple, but I can only remember my mamaw warming up butter in a pan of water, and pouring in that pack of savory herb... stuff. And then, like Jesus in a saucepan, it would rise. She would pour a pint glass of Natural Lite for herself, and off she’d go to prepare the next dish. Mamaw didn't get a lot right; I mean, consider her beer preference. But after all these years, I realized that we should have never forsaken the beautiful simplicity of stuffing from a box.
In a society that gravitates toward labels stamped with terms like organic or GMO-free, it’s easy to cast off the blessing of quick-fix food. As I watched a friend this past Thanksgiving labor for hours just to prep a single dish (Scott, your bacon cornbread stuffing was beautiful), all I could think about was the instant gratification of Stove Top. You choose your player like a video game-Sage, Turkey, Chicken, Low Sodium Chicken-and the world is your oyster. (Seriously, there could be an oyster flavor; the Stove Top universe knows no bounds.) But instead, Scott cooked bacon and diced scallions and grated cheese. He sautéed mushrooms and cooked a whole pan of cornbread just to tear it apart.
We tend to believe that if something takes more work, it automatically means that it has more value. I remember college friends that bragged about how much homework they had, like being miserable was supposed to be a badge of honor. When you're able to sit at the table and wax poetic about signature ingredients and how long it took you to make that dish, it means you're serious. And there's nothing wrong with that! But as Scott toiled away, all I could think about was my mamaw, throwing back that Natural Light (Don’t call it Natty), and how much time she had for us after creating what was already my favorite part of the holidays.
So this year I took a box and prepared it myself. I chose cornbread because I'm a purist, added a couple of my own ingredients, and after about 20 minutes, considered the miracle I had made. Then I reached into the fridge and poured a cider (I'm my own man) into a pint glass. And I'll do the same thing when I cook the stuffing this year for my family on Christmas Day.
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