The Waldorf Story

The dish was famously created in 1896 by a chap called Oscar Tschirky, the maître d’ of New York’s Waldorf Hotel (later to become the Waldorf Astoria), for a society dinner. The original was a simple affair recorded thus in Tschirky’s cookbook:

Peel two raw apples and cut them into small pieces, say about half an inch square, also cut some celery the same way and mix it with the apple. Be very careful not to let any seeds of the apples be mixed with it. The salad must be dressed with a good mayonnaise.