Thousand Island dressing

Thousand Island dressing is a creamy salad dressing and condiment made from a base of mayonnaise and usually ketchup or tomato purée and chopped pickles, and typically including a variety of other ingredients. It was initially popularized in the Thousand Islands region of the upper Saint Lawrence River spanning New York and Canada. Historically a salad dressing, it has been widely adopted by fast food chains as a "special" or "secret" sauce of their own variation based on the Thousand Island recipe.

History

The origin of Thousand Island dressing's name is unknown. Considerable historic and anecdotal evidence suggest it may hail from the Thousand Islands region along the upper St. Lawrence River between the United States and Canada. Within that region, one common version of the dressing's origin maintains that a Clayton, New York, fishing guide's wife, Sophia LaLonde, made the condiment as part of her husband George's shore dinner. Often in this version, actress May Irwin requested the recipe after enjoying it. Irwin, in turn, gave it to another. In another version of the story, George Boldt, who summered in the Thousand Islands, built Boldt Castle between 1900 and 1904, and was proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, instructed the hotel's maître d'hôtel, Oscar Tschirky, to put the dressing on the menu in 1894 after he forgot dressing on salads and improvised with ingredients on hand at the time.