In 1947, while he was head chef at Hollywood’s famous\u00a0Brown Derby, Robert Kries brought his popular Italian salad dressing to the commercial market. \u00a0Called Good Seasons, it consisted of two packets of dried herbs with spices and a glass cruet marked with failure proof measurement levels for oil, vinegar and water. For the first time, American cooks had a mix for reliably tasty homemade vinaigrette.<\/p>\n
Following in the wake of Good Seasons, the commercial salad dressing market exploded into what has become a multi-billion part of American food, offering Asian, Mexican, French, Italian, Greek, Spanish, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, East Indian, Tex-Mex, Bayou, gluten free, raspberry, blackberry and barbecue flavored and diet varieties. Commercial, ready-to-eat salad dressings are the everyday option of most American households.<\/p>\n
While I understand their obvious convenience, my problems with bottled dressings<\/a> are cost and blatant, in-your-face flavors that obliterate the delicate tastes of salad greens. Reading the ingredient declarations can be scary too.<\/p>\n Salad is a part of almost every dinner I cook. My go-to vinaigrette<\/a>, put together directly onto the greens is a combination of fresh lemon juice, Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper and extra virgin olive oil. Simple and inexpensive, it never out-flavors the greens.<\/p>\n