I'm Stuffed. Are You Stuffed Too?

I am staring at these stuffed dates I have just prepared and obsessing a bit on the word: Full, sated, a slang word for being full of shit, a generic reference for the things around us. And so on. A recent NY Times article on Bill Buford’s latest book on French cuisine, “Dirt,” cites poulet en vessie, a whole chicken steamed inside a pig’s bladder.

Just the word “stuff” conjures up, well, all kinds of stuff. The stuff my mom stored in our garage until she found the time (never, actually) to take it to the one recycling bin in Savannah back in the day. The stuff from which dreams are made, signifying, well, you know, nothing.

My main thought: How did we evolve to the point of not being satisfied enough with one main ingredient, that we have to stuff it inside another one? Or is that devolution and not evolution?

The classic, of course, is the Thanksgiving turkey, with its equally famous stuffing, a pair easily as famous as Abbot & Costello, Othello and Desdemona making the beast with two backs, and everything in between. And Israel is no stranger at all to its own culinary stuffing concoctions: stuffed grape leaves, stuffed bell peppers, stuffed zucchini, you name it. If it has volume, its depths are plumbed. — and its character is transformed.

I think that is what I enjoy about the stuffed dates on our menu. There’s really no depth to plumb, no transformation. It remains what it is, Somehow, honest, if you don’t mind a cliche. . You remove the small seed from these amazing Madjul dates and then cram them full of aged balsamic vinegar, parmesan cheese, lemon zest, parsley, salt, pepper, and olive oil. We even have a vegan version, with walnuts replacing the parmesan. It’s so southern and yet also so Mediterranean at the same time. Soul Food Tel Aviv.