There’s nothing called Italian Dressing in Italy. That’s no surprise, right? The French call the quarter-pounder a Royale with Cheese, and the Italians would just call their dressing, salad dressing, surely. Imagine our surprise when we couldn’t find salad dressing at the supermarket. Lots of mayonnaise, lots of other sauces, lots of dressing ingredients. No salad dressing by any name we could decipher.
It became clear after we ordered a salad at a restaurant. The waiter gave us a little cannister of olive oil and a little cannister of balsamic vinegar. Aha! It’s mixed at the table. Nobody has ready-made vinaigrette because the ingredients are common table condiments.
I wonder what a table would look like with every culture’s condiments? Salt, pepper, sugar, ketchup, mustard, BBQ sauce, soy sauce, wasabi, chilli oil, MSG shakers, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, chutney, etc. You could serve the customers a lone raw potato and the rest would take care of itself. ;-)