Food 52

Josh Quittner’s Cornbread and Sausage Stuffing

When I asked my dad for his stuffing recipe (which I think about obsessively all year-round), he wrote back, "Not only do I not have it written out, I've never seen it written out. I make it a little differently each time—my father taught it to me, and I think it's the same stuffing everyone makes." After much needling, I got him to share the basics, which produce a phenomenal stuffing as written. But feel free to add your own twists, like he does every year. Grated Parmesan, for example, would take this over the top. (My dad's dream twist, he noted, would be the addition of fresh oysters: "Every year, I resist the temptation to add them, because your mother hates oysters in stuffing, or hot oysters in anything for that matter.") Lastly, he noted that while you can substitute your own cornbread (left out to grow stale), he's tried it a few times, and doesn't think it's worth the trouble. "In fact," he said, "It seems like a criminal waste of fresh corn bread, which you could have eaten hot and slathered in butter." I can attest that I've eaten this same stuffing every year for decades, and have never noticed the difference.