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Bread Stuffing
2 tablespoons butter 1 onion 3 cups broken bread 1 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon black pepper 1 tablespoon chopped parsley 1 teaspoon sweet marjoram Slice the onion and cook it in the butter; mix thoroughly with the other ingredients and use. If onion is not liked, omit it and merely melt the butter before mixing.
A plain 1900s bread stuffing, given with no liquid and no egg — it relies on the bird's own juices for moisture. Two points need attention: the stray potato line at the end, and the temperature the stuffing must reach inside the bird.
- The orphaned last line"2 cups hot boiled potatoes" is not part of the bread stuffing; it appears to be the opening line of the next recipe on the page, run on by mistake. Ignore it.
- "Broken bread"Day-old bread torn into rough pieces, not fresh sandwich bread and not fine dry crumbs. Three cups of torn bread is roughly 4 to 5 ounces, about a third of a standard loaf. Fresh bread will pack into paste.
- Sweet marjoramStill sold, but usually just as "marjoram"; it is milder and sweeter than oregano and is not interchangeable with it one-for-one. If using dried, a teaspoon is right; if fresh, use about a tablespoon.
- MoistureWith only 2 tablespoons of butter this mixture is dry by modern standards, which is deliberate — it was meant to absorb juices inside the bird. If you are baking it in a dish instead, add about 1/2 to 3/4 cup stock, or it will bake to croutons.
- Temperature inside the birdStuffing packed into a cavity heats more slowly than the meat around it. The center of the stuffing needs to reach 165F, checked with a thermometer, not just the thigh. Pack it loosely to let heat through.
- Do not stuff in advanceMix the stuffing ahead if you like, but keep it chilled and fill the bird immediately before it goes in the oven. Warm stuffing sitting in a raw cavity is the classic failure point of this style of recipe.
- YieldEnough for a 4 to 5 lb chicken, or a light filling for a small turkey breast. For a 12 lb bird you will need roughly three times the quantity.
Bread stuffing of this kind — stale bread, butter, onion, salt, pepper, parsley and marjoram — was a common American dressing of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and versions of it appear in many general cookbooks of the period. What is slightly unusual here is the herb choice: sweet marjoram and parsley rather than sage. The stray potato line at the foot of the page suggests that a neighbouring recipe has been run on. The absence of egg is worth noting too: egg-bound stuffings could be sliced, while a plain buttered bread dressing like this one is meant to be spooned out soft.