CLAYTON – Thousand Island Dressing, one of the most popular salad dressings in the Hudson Valley, traces its roots to upstate New York. The dressing is named for the Thousand Islands region, located in the upper St. Lawrence River between Canada and New York.
The history of Thousand Island dressing is not without controversy. Some say its original name is “Sophia‘s Sauce,” named after Sophia LaLonde, whose husband ran a tourist fishing business in the upstate town of Clayton. Others hold fast that the salad-topping favorite has always been called Thousand Island.
To get to the bottom of the controversy, Mid-Hudson News visited both the Village of Alexandria Bay and Village of Clayton, communities that both claim the origin of the recipe.
Brad Minnick, the owner of the Thousand Islands Inn located in Clayton, says Clayton is the place where the popular dressing was first served.
“The Thousand Island Dressing was created as a dipping sauce for fish by the wife of a Clayton fishing guide during the Gilded Age,” he said.
One common link between both stories is George Boldt, a man who once owned the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. Boldt often vacationed in the area and in 1900 he started to build the “Boldt Castle” on Heart Island in the St Lawrence River for his wife Louise. Boldt never completed the build because she died at a young age. Today, the castle serves as a tourist destination in Alexandria Bay.
The Bay‘s version of how the famous dressing came to be is that Boldt instructed his hotel’s maître d’, Oscar Tschirky, to come up with something after Tschirky forgot salad dressing for the guests. Tschirky reportedly improvised with the ingredients he had on hand, which turned out to be a great success.
Following his creation, the dressing found a permanent place on the menu at the Waldorf. Some doubt the story because any mention of the dressing is absent from Tschirky’s cookbook, which was published at the time.
Minnick said he believes there is no evidence that supports Alexandria Bay’s version of the story.
“There’s no evidence that Oscar of the Waldorf, who wasn’t even a chef because he was the maître d’ and never came up when Boldt was here,” he said.
Minnick says the secret of the original recipe rests in his hands because he has Sophia’s handwritten recipe found in a safe at the inn.
“There’s a special little place that nobody else knows about,” he said laughingly.
