Salad Days

Recipe provenance is a wily thing. Who combined (insert your list) ingredients to make (insert your dish) first? Definitive answers to almost any version of that question elude, but it is possible to track down the first time a recipe was published. And that, friends, is where the credits come in. Waldorf Salad is a fun example. The recipe for Waldorf Salad was first published in 1896 by The Saalfield Publishing Co. of Chicago, Akron and New York in a 907-page tome written by Oscar Tschirky, famed maître d’hotel at The Waldorf Hotel from 1893 to 1943.  Tschirky wasn’t a chef, but he had very good taste and a shrewd understanding of what guests liked. He’s also credited with being the first to menu eggs Benedict and veal Oscar among other classic hotel dishes. Continue Reading…

From Hollywood’s Brown Derby restaurant and named for its owner, Robert Howard Cobb, the Cobb Salad is the original chopped salad. A mix of finely chopped watercress, curly endive, Romaine and iceberg lettuces topped with crisp bacon, hard boiled egg, tomato, chive, chicken breast, Roquefort cheese and avocado, the original was served with a house-made “French” dressing that was more akin to red wine vinaigrette than the sweet orange stuff  labeled “French” on a salad bar.  Continue Reading…

Really simple, really good, really pretty: just chilled red potatoes, beets, crisp lettuce and a creamy, sweet & tangy mustard dressing. This is an adaptation of a Swedish salad included in a charming, 1951 community collection by Heloise Frost and Ellen Nelson. Continue Reading…