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Salad Dressing (One-half cup of vinegar two)
One-half cup of vinegar, two tablespoons of sugar, two liberal tablespoons of butter, one teaspoon of salt, one five-cent can of Van Camp's evaporated cream, one teaspoon of mustard, one teaspoon of flour mixed with a little water, two eggs well beaten. Mix all together, stirring constantly.
— Mrs. F. P. Bush
This is a boiled dressing, the standard American salad dressing before bottled mayonnaise: an egg-and-vinegar custard thickened with a little flour and enriched with butter and canned milk. The receipt assumes you know it goes over heat, because it never says so.
- It must be cookedMix everything cold in a heavy saucepan or double boiler, then cook over low to moderate heat, stirring without stopping, until it thickens enough to coat the spoon — around 160-170F. Stirred raw and left, it is simply raw egg in vinegar.
- The five-cent canVan Camp's evaporated cream was evaporated milk sold under the older label. The small tins of the period were in the neighbourhood of 5 or 6 fluid ounces, though sizes varied; a modern 5 or 6 oz can of evaporated milk is a reasonable substitute. Do not use sweetened condensed milk.
- Vinegar strengthHousehold cider vinegar then varied in strength and character, unlike today's standardised 5 percent. Half a cup of modern vinegar makes a sharp dressing; taste before adding more sugar or salt.
- MustardA teaspoon of "mustard" in a receipt of this kind most likely means dry mustard powder rather than prepared mustard. Rub it smooth with the flour paste so it does not sit in lumps.
- Temper the eggsBeat the eggs well and, if the pan is already warm, whisk a ladle of the hot mixture into them before returning everything to the pan. Straining the finished dressing through a sieve catches any threads that set.
- Consistency and keepingIt thickens further as it cools and will be quite stiff from the refrigerator; loosen with a spoonful of milk or cream. Yield is a generous cup and a half, enough for a large bowl of cabbage, potato or chicken salad. Keep covered and cold, and use within about four days.
Boiled dressing was widely used before commercial mayonnaise was common on the American grocery shelf, when a cook who wanted a creamy dressing made a thin cooked custard sharpened with vinegar and mustard. It used ingredients any village pantry held — eggs, butter, flour, vinegar — and it was less liable to break than a true mayonnaise and could be kept a few days in the cellar or icebox. The naming of a specific brand and price is the detail that dates it: canned evaporated milk came into general household use around the turn of the twentieth century, and it was evidently cheap and familiar enough for a contributor to identify her tin by cost rather than volume. Community cookbooks of this kind, often sold to raise money for a church or a library, are full of such shorthand, written by neighbours for neighbours who shopped at the same store.