Farre or Dressing

Dressing was always one of my favorites during the holidays. It's rich, comforting, and flavorful. Pair it with roux peas and it’s a match made in heaven.

As a food that always showed up on both sides of my family tables, I thought it was a “normal” food until I found it wasn’t. My roommates and I hosted a Christmasgiving one year while we were at OSU. We went all out with preparations and menu planning. During one of the final menu reviews they saw dressing with the ingredient list and were appalled that I called this dish dressing. I told them how delicious it was, it’s the only dressing I knew, and everyone loves it. They told me they believed me but 1) I can’t call it that 2) I need to make “real” dressing if I make my version of dressing.

Upon telling my mom this discovery, I found out two things: 1) she suggested I call it farre (pronounced fa as in do, re, mi, fa, so, la) because that was the old name 2) most people outside of St. James Parish don’t know the dish. I was like but mom, Grandma Merle (my maternal grandma who was the New Orleans grandma) made it. My mom was like yes and her mom grew up in Edgard which borders St. James and Grandma Merle’s older sister was born in Paulina, in St James. Touché ma!

I tried to research this dish to give you the 411 on why it is unique to this area, but I didn’t find anything earth shattering or even information beyond a couple of sentences. The best I could find is farre was brought to the area known as the German Coast by the Germans. While I didn’t find answers, I did find information that led me to more questions.

I used google translate to see how it would hold up to the German origin theory and farre doesn’t appear to be a modern German or French word. My brother gave me a copy of Dictionary of Louisiana French: As Spoken in Cajun, Creole, and American Indian Communities. They have farre defined as dressing, rice dressing, or stuffing and used in Avoyelles, Evangeline, Iberia, Jefferson Davis, Lafayette, Lafourche St. James, St. Landry St. Martin, Terrebonne, and Vermilion Parishes. I checked several local cookbooks from different parishes (the ones where the recipes are sourced from many different people) and it seems the version in St. James is different in that it uses bread and not rice as the starch. Disclaimer St. James does have the rice version as well, it’s just called rice dressing or dirty rice. Also I didn’t have cookbooks from all of the parishes in question.

The jury is still out with the German Coast theory. St. James is the only parish (did the dictionary cover the other parishes?) listed that is a part of the German Coast and other non-German settled areas have something extremely similar. However, it is worth noting that the border between Germany and France was not stagnant and the Germans who came to the region are from border towns.

Quick switch over to modern times. The OG recipe included oysters, but some family members didn’t like oysters so we always had it with and without. When I was put in charge of making this dish as a teenager, I was not a fan of them and always did sans oysters. I’ve come to love a good oyster, but I’ve never added them back in – maybe I should next time.

Farre is my favorite holiday leftovers. Hands down – no questions asked. You toast your favorite sandwich bread, spread mayo (not the time to say you don’t like it, do it anyway) on both slices of bread and put warm farre on it. Take a bite, savor it, and thank the heavens.

PS Do not judge the doneness of farre by the photo in this post. I was running out of daylight that I needed for the photo so I rolled with it. I added the dressing back to the pot after the photo was taken and kept cooking.

Farre/Dressing Ingredients
2 lbs ground beef (I like 90% lean)
2 lbs ground pork
2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp cayenne
Salt (start with 2 tsp)
1 Tbl Worcestershire sauce
5 c chopped onion (about 2 - medium/large ones)
2 ½ c chopped bell pepper (about 2 large bell peppers)
2 ½ c chopped celery (about 4 stalks)
4 slices of sandwich bread (whatever kind you use)
water
2 Tbl garlic

Farre/Dressing Directions
Put a 6 quart Dutch oven, on medium heat. Dump in 2 lbs ground beef and 2 lbs ground pork and you should hear a sizzle, If not, bump up your heat. Periodically break up the meat with a spatula into small pieces and turn the meat over.

Be patient because it can take an hour to brown all that meat. The meat will release water as it turns to a light brown color. Once the water evaporates, allow the bottom meat to get dark brown, turn it over, and repeat until all of the meat is dark. If the bottom of the pot starts building too much graton, the brown bits at the bottom of the pot, just deglaze it with a tiny bit of water and carry on. Don’t add too much water because it will slow down browning. No need to worry about drying out the meat, we(‘re) building flavor!

Add 2 tsp black pepper, 1 tsp cayenne, 2 tsp salt, 1 Tbl Worcestershire sauce. Stir and taste. You can add salt if needed.

Slice off both ends of the onions. Slice it pole to pole in half and remove the dry skin. Lay it flat side down and slice thinly poll to poll then slice cross ways to create a small dice. Add 5 c of chopped onion on top of the meat, put the top on the pot and reduce the heat to medium low heat.

Cut the bell pepper around the stem. Remove the veins and seeds. Lay the bell pepper flat with the interior face up. Slice it into thin strips, rotate it 90 degrees, slice into small dice. Add 2 ½ c of bell pepper on top of the onions.

Slice the celery down the middle of the rib. Where the celery fans out, add more log slices to create even widths. Slice it across to create a small dice. Chop the leaves finely. Add 2 1/2 c of chopped celery on top of bell pepper.

Stack the bread slices and cut in ½” strips. Rotate 90 degrees and repeat. Add it on top of the bell pepper. Stir the pot. Add enough water to reach ½ the depth of the meat. Cover it and let it simmer 45 minutes.

Slice off the dry ends of the garlic. Lay the knife flat on top of the clove and give it a good whack with the exterior of your fist. Slice it into thin strips. Rock the knife back and forth to mince it. Add 2 Tbl of garlic to the pot. Stir.

Allow to simmer about 30 minutes. Taste and adjust any spices except for spice. Cook for about another 60 minutes and periodically stir the pot. If your mixture is sticking to the bottom of the pot, your fire is too hot. Add more water if the mixture becomes dry.

When it’s done, you’ll no longer be able to identify the trinity (onions, bell pepper, and celery) or bread pieces. It will look like a creamy meat mixture. The dish should not be dry, but if you put some on the plate and run a spoon down the middle, the trail should not fill in. Taste it one last time and add salt if needed.


Notes
Four pounds of meat is alot of meat to brown in one pot. You can spread it over two pots to reduce the cooking time. After the meat is dark brown, combine it into one pot. Deglaze the empty pot with a little water so you don’t lose all that flavor in the bottom!

You can chop the trinity while the meat browns and add it to the pot all at once.

If you want to add oysters, chop up 3 dozens oysters and add them to the pot 15 minutes before it’s done. If you’re adverse to the texture of oysters, chop them super fine – all the flavor and none of the texture!