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| In addition to her theatrical accomplishments, vaudevillian May Irwin also wrote a cookbook called May Irwin’s Home Cooking (1904). The book came out before the Thousand Island Dressing had gained notoriety, so it’s not in the book. The cover photo shows Irwin hamming it up as a cook. |
The time setting is the first decade or so of the 1900s.
George Lalonde: A fishing guide in Clayton, New York (a sort of gateway to the Thousand Islands region of upstate New York), who frequently took the rich folks—abundant in the region—on fishing trips, at the end of which he provided a “Shore Dinner.”
Sophia Lalonde: George’s wife. She no doubt provided the food for George’s shore dinners. This included (or so the story goes) a sauce that we now call Thousand Island Dressing—though it wasn’t called that yet.
Ella Bertrand: Her family owned the Herald Hotel in Clayton, New York. Somehow the family got hold of Sophia's sauce recipe. (According to the current owners of the hotel—now called Thousand Islands Inn—the Bertrands locked the handwritten recipe away in the hotel's safe.)
May Irwin: A prominent vaudevillian of the era who vacationed in the region. Although she later bought her own island, when she first came to the area she stayed at the Herald Hotel, where she encountered....yes, the special sauce. At this point it appears that it might (stress on might, since it’s not proved) have been served as a salad dressing.
George C. Boldt: A self-made millionaire (owner of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel) who was building a house for his wife on one of the islands in the Thousand Islands (sadly his wife died before he could finish it). Boldt was friends with Irwin, who gave him the recipe (again, so the myth goes) for the sauce.
Oscar Tschirky: Oscar was the world-famous (well, back then anyway) maître d’ at the Waldorf. Apparently his boss, Boldt, instructed him to put this Thousand Island Dressing on the menu at the hotel. An extremely unlikely scenario—plus the menus of the time do not show any evidence of this dressing.
And two outliers:
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| Theo. Rooms in 1926. Does he look trustable? |
New Orleans: Sophia Lalonde’s dressing bears a very striking resemblance to a rémoulade from New Orleans. Thus, NOLA also claims credit for the sauce.
Here’s what I think:
• Sophia Lalonde knew how to make a rémoulade (she wasn’t French-Canadian, but her in-laws were), and she made one for hubby George to serve with fish at his shore dinners. According to Sophia’s great-niece, it was used as a sandwich spread.
• Somehow Sophia’s fish sauce/sandwich spread morphed into a salad dressing. Since May Irwin definitely exhibited a preference for creamy dressings, maybe she’s the one who suggested it be used as a salad dressing.
• As to why the dressing was so named: It has chopped-up green things in it, which would certainly resemble lots of little islands. May Irwin, who is credited with coming up with the name, and who was a well known wag, probably saw the humor in naming it for both its appearance and its provenance. Note however, that in a handwritten letter* to the wife of her new house's architect, she referred to it as "Sophia's Sauce."
• Theo. Rooms, while on vacation, probably ran across the sauce and noted its resemblance to his salad dressing . . . oh, and liked its name. Boom!
• Anyhoo, by 1914 a salad dressing called Thousand Island Dressing was appearing on hotel menus as far west as Alberta, Canada. Maybe this was Theo. Rooms’s dressing? Maybe the Waldorf’s? Maybe Sophie Lalonde’s? Quien sabe?
The following recipe is sort of cobbled together from several recipes from back in the day. I wish I could have started with Sophia Lalonde’s original (however, see * below), but the family who is currently selling the bottled version of Lalonde’s dressing could hardly be expected to part with the recipe.
Thousand Island Dressing
Makes about 11/4 cupsThe chili sauce called for here is the type that is like ketchup, not a hot sauce. You can use Heinz’s version, or you can get all authentic and make your own from a recipe that was around when Sophia Lalonde was making her special Thousand Island sauce. As to the mayo, Hellmann’s mayonnaise had just begun to be mass-marketed around 1912, so I’m going to say that Sophia might have availed herself of that convenience instead of using homemade. Use this as a sauce for fish, as a sandwich spread, or draped over a wedge of iceberg lettuce.
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup chili sauce, store-bought (Heinz) or homemade (see recipe)
2 tablespoons minced pimiento-stuffed olives
1 tablespoon chopped green bell pepper
1 tablespoon minced chives or scallion greens
In a bowl, whisk everything together. Store in the fridge.
Reverse Thousand Island Dressing: This is a green(ish) dressing with red islands in it (instead of the pink version with green islands). Use salsa verde instead of the chili sauce, and stir in 2 tablespoons minced red bell pepper and 2 tablespoons minced grape tomatoes.
*Thanks to a documentary called The Mysterious Origin of Thousand Island Dressing (part of a series from Mysterious Origin Productions, founded by producers Eric J. Roberts and Andrea Reeves), I got a look at a handwritten letter from May Irwin that included a recipe for "Sophia's Sauce." It's not known if this was the sauce verbatim from Sophia or if May Irwin, who had her own notions about food, contributed her own tweaks. But here it is: 1 cup mayonnaise, 1/2 cup ketchup, 1 hard-boiled egg [chopped, we assume], 2 tablespoons Worchestershire [sic] sauce, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1/4 cup pickle relish. Per the letter: "Mix in bowl. Keep cool."
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