The Origins of Thousand Island Dressing: Pink Sauce, Innit

This is another classic. There are a million variations, and I have certainly made use of mayonnaise mixes in this book.

Like a lot of American recipes, it is hard to ascertain who devised the original recipe: our mate Oscar Tschirky of the Waldorf is one possible, as is a dame called Sophia Lalonde, who ran an hotel in the Thousand Island area between NYC and Canada.

The earliest accounts refer to mayonnaise being mixed with double cream, chives, tarragon vinegar, lemon juice and various types of pepper. It seems to have become spicier (through the addition of chilli sauce, mustard or Worcestershire sauce) and pinker (through the addition of paprika, and, more recently, ketchup) as the years went by.