Stuff And Smother More Food, Goddammit

Monday afternoon the Defector staff learned of a Texas chain restaurant the people of Fort Worth are going nuts over. What they do at this restaurant, which originated in Houston, is they serve you a turkey leg which they have stuffed with slop and smothered with other slop, and you eat it. The image above is of one of their turkey legs, smothered in some sort of cream-based, seafood-studded slop, and shaved cheese. It looks horrifying. Stuff it into my face immediately until I am dead.

As happens whenever details of a new food item are introduced into Slack around lunchtime—this turkey leg monstrosity was dropped at 12:19 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, for maximum effect—we at Defector were driven to slobbering distraction by the tantalizing thought of a slow-cooked turkey leg bursting with and drowning in fattening sludge. And while it may cause you to second-guess your subscription to this blog-site to learn that several of its co-owners are too hifalutin to get down with turkey meat coated in something called "seafood alfredo," one reassuring, unifying value did seem to emerge: It is good to stuff and smother food. To stuff and smother food is to elevate it to a higher plane of existence. If you have some food, consider stuffing and smothering it.

Perhaps you are doubting whether this is, in general, all that practical. To you I would simply point out that if you can stuff a turkey leg, which has a whole big bone in there, with spicy rice, and then smother it with macaroni and cheese, you can stuff and smother virtually anything. Furthermore, I would point out that any food you can name that cannot be stuffed—broth, for example, or one single alfalfa sprout—can be smothered, and can, if need be, be doubly smothered, to make up for the lack of stuffing. Foods that cannot reasonably be smothered—I submit here that I cannot think of a single food item that cannot have gravy poured over it, but just in case—can, in all probability, be stuffed. Do not hand me any food item that is neither stuffed nor smothered, or I will simply hand it back to you with a request for stuffing and/or smothering, and then wave my hand as I would at a mosquito at your clarifying questions.

I ask you, what is eggs Benedict but smothered eggs? And what is an omelette but stuffed eggs? Why should we not combine the two theories, and have eggs Benedict stuffed with deviled crab? Why should chicken parmesan not be stuffed with fennel sausage? Why should a chili dog not be stuffed with egg salad? Although this is by no means a comprehensive list, please consider stuffing your foods with any of the following:

• Spicy rice
• Creamed spinach
• Cornbread
• Smoked, pulled meat
• Crab
• Macaroni and cheese
• Just a fistful of cheese
• Several fistfuls of cheese

We have stuffed the turkey, we have stuffed the tenderloin, we have stuffed the tomato and the olive and the pizza crust. Bivalves, bell peppers, and cheeseburgers have all been stuffed. Why should they not also be smothered? Why will they refuse to pour piping hot nacho cheese all over my Oysters Rockefeller? Please smother your food with any of the following:

• Alfredo
• Clam chowder
• Sausage gravy
• Ham gravy
• Gravy
• Hollandaise
• Macaroni and cheese
• Several fistfuls of cheese (melted)

And we haven't even started on dessert.