Illinois Central Salad Dressing

Erma, I can always depend on you to have an “alcohol enhanced dessert” that you call medicinal. Who, but you, would have a “cure” for heat that is really a booze pie? I’m so sick of the heat that I’m about to take a double dose of your Brandy Flip Pie. It may not bring the temperature down, but after two slices, who’ll care?

Since we seem to be living on salads this week, I am sending you a real treasure. It is the old Illinois Central Railroad Salad Dressing. This was the only recipe that included the railroad’s name and was always prepared fresh on the train. When I make it, often in double batches, I look at the original directions that said to allocate 45 minutes to prepare, and I see how fast I can put it together. Imagine standing there in a swaying railroad dining car kitchen with a large chef’s knife “chopping fine” all those vegetables? And you know that they didn’t make it up one quart at a time. Some poor beginning cook probably spent hours of his day making up gallons of this dressing. What that fellow (I don’t think there were ever women chefs on trains back then) would have given for a food processor like the KitchenAid 7-Cup Food Processor. Just throw in the veggies, hit the pulse button a couple of times, and voila, it is “chopped fine.” Mere seconds.

Illinois Central Salad Dressing:

2 tablespoons celery
2 tablespoons green pepper
1 teaspoon green onion
2 tablespoons dill pickle
2 tablespoon pimento
2 hard boiled eggs
2 cups mayonnaise
1 cup chili sauce

In my original recipe, the directions said to chop all the ingredients fine. Today we are lucky and can use the food processor and cut out all sorts of chopping time. In a large bowl mix all the vegetables and the eggs and then add the mayonnaise. Slowly stir in the chili sauce. Chill well, and store in a one quart storage container.

Makes one quart. Use any place one would use a Thousand Island like dressing.

Original directions say this will take 45 minutes to prepare. See how much time a good food processor will save you?.