Growing up in the 1950's was a bit like growing up on another planet compared to today. New Orleans was a world away from our little town. From time to time I would ride to New Orleans with my grandparents —Papaw had business, we ate a great lunch and we always went shopping at Schwegmann's Grocery Store. Schwegmann's was a New Orleans family-owned grocery empire. This local chain was founded in 1869 and remained a vital presence in the city until 1996. We would visit the location on Gentilly Blvd. , said to be "the largest supermarket in the world" at 155,000 square feet. To a small child from rural Mississippi, it seemed to be as large as downtown to me. We would go up and down the aisles looking at all the wonderfully strange and exotic foodstuffs. On one trip we found a bottle of pale green salad dressing with the label, "Green Goddess." I was a child full of questions and wanted to know immediately why a salad dressing would be named that. The most exotic bottled salad dressing in our hometown store was Wishbone Italian. (I usually referred to it as Pulleybone Italian, using our name for the poultry wishbone.) Papaw didn't know the answer to my question about the name, but he bought me a bottle. We ate it on saltine crackers when we got home and I learned a new taste - tarragon. This new taste delivered on the promise of new and exotic to me.
Chef Phillip Roemer created the salad dressing known as Green Goddess in the 1920’s at the Palace Hotel Garden Court Restaurant in San Francisco. George Arliss, the star of William Archer's play, "The Green Goddess" made his home at the Palace Hotel during the run of the play. To honor Mr. Arliss, the chef named a new salad dressing in his honor. The pale green dressing topped a lump crabment salad. Incidentally, Green Goddess salad dressing isn't the only familiar dish created at the Palace. In 1910 the Christmas menu featured a dish of chicken with spaghetti named for the opera singer, Luisa Tetrazzini.
Green Goddess salad dressing has a New Orleans connection. Chef Warren Leruth, owner of LeRuth's Restaurant, was also an excellent food chemist. Mr. Leruth had an uncanny ability to taste. It was said that he could easily distinguish flavors consisting of one ten-thousandth of a gram to a 15-ton batch of food. While working for Anderson, Clayton and Company, Mr. Leruth created the brand name "Seven Seas" as well as several salad dressings under with that label. In this line was Green Goddess salad dressing. The original recipe used by the Palace Hotel did not contain tarragon. Somewhere through the years tarragon became part of the flavor profile. Mr. Leruth used it in his formula for Seven Seas Green Goddess. (Interesting connection — the Anderson in Anderson, Clayton was M. D. Anderson, whose name has become synonymous with the Texas Cancer Hospital which bears his name.)
Green Goddess Salad Dressing
(Yield: 2 cups)
• 1 cup good-quality mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup snipped fresh chives or minced scallions (green onions)
• 1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
• 1/4 cup minced fresh tarragon
• 1 tablespoon fresh-squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
• 3 anchovy fillet, rinsed, patted dry, and minced OR 2 inches of anchovy paste squeezed from the tube
• Coarse salt and freshly-ground pepper to taste
In a food processor or blender, blend mayonnaise, sour cream, chive or scallions, parsley, tarragon, lemon juice, wine vinegar, minced anchovy fillets, salt, and pepper. Blend until combined and the dressing is a lovely shade of green.
Prepare and refrigerate the dressing at least 1 hour before serving to allow the flavors to blend.
Green Goddess dressing is especially good served with seafood. My favorite way to eat it is still on a Saltine cracker. n
Fran Ginn is former chef/owner of The Back Door Café, who retired after 31 years in the food industry to be a grandmother. She can be contacted at fran@franginn.com.
