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To Mix a Quantity of Dressing
Put all the ingredients into a fruit jar, fit on one or more rubbers and the cover; then shake the jar vigorously, until a smooth dressing is formed.
This is a method rather than a formula: it belongs to the French dressing recipes it follows, and simply tells you to make them in bulk by shaking rather than whisking. Everything hinges on the seal.
- What a fruit jar isA glass preserving jar, of the sort sold for putting up fruit; the familiar screw-band Mason or Ball jar is the modern equivalent, though clamp- and bail-top jars were also called fruit jars. A quart jar is the practical size for a batch of dressing; fill it no more than two-thirds so the contents have room to move.
- "One or more rubbers"Rubbers are the flat rubber gasket rings that sealed old zinc- or glass-lidded jars; a second ring was presumably a way of getting a tight enough seal to keep oil from weeping out under vigorous shaking, especially as old rubbers hardened. A modern two-piece canning lid, screwed down firmly, does the same job with one gasket.
- Proportions are not given hereThe original assumes you are scaling one of the dressings printed alongside it. Three parts oil to one part vinegar, with salt, pepper and often a little dry mustard or paprika, is the common modern default; period recipes vary a good deal either side of it.
- Why shaking worksAgitation breaks the oil into droplets small enough to stay suspended for a while. It is a temporary emulsion, not mayonnaise: expect it to separate within an hour and shake again just before dressing the greens.
- Mustard as insuranceDry mustard, and to a lesser extent paprika, act as weak emulsifiers and hold the mix together noticeably longer. If your batch splits within minutes, that is what is missing.
- StorageA plain oil-and-vinegar dressing keeps for a couple of weeks in the refrigerator. Anything with egg, cream or fresh garlic in it should be treated as perishable and used within a day or two.
- Cold oil cloudsOlive oil turns thick and cloudy at refrigerator temperature and will not shake smooth. Let the jar stand at room temperature for fifteen or twenty minutes before you try to emulsify it.
- YieldA quart jar filled two-thirds full holds around twenty fluid ounces, which at a generous couple of tablespoons a plate is enough for roughly twenty side salads, and half again as many if you dress them lightly.
Making dressing by shaking it in a sealed glass jar became possible on a household scale only after cheap screw-top preserving jars arrived; the design is generally credited to John Landis Mason's 1858 patent, and by the end of the century such jars were widely sold, with replacement rubber rings offered as an ordinary consumable. The instruction is often said to reflect a moment when salads were moving from a garnish to a course in their own right, and cooks in boarding houses, hotels and large families needed a gallon of French dressing rather than a saucerful. Shaking also saved the labour of hand-whisking, which mattered in a kitchen without an electric mixer, and it anticipates the bottled dressings that appeared in the following decades, sold with the instruction to shake well before using.