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Thousand Island dressing is a variety of salad dressing most commonly made of, primarily, mayonnaise, ketchup, and a mixture of finely chopped vegetables, most often pickles, onions, bell peppers, and/or green olives; chopped hard-boiled eggs are also common. Thousand Island was invented as a variant upon Russian dressing in the first decades of the 20th century by Sophia LaLonde. Sophia substituted mayonnaise for the yogurt that was used in Russian dressing, and added pickle relish, chives and sometimes chopped, hard-boiled eggs. The dressing was popularized by one of her dinner guests, actress May Irwin, who gave the condiment its name, after LaLonde's home, the Thousand Islands region of upstate New York and Eastern Ontario.An alternate tale claims that the name refers instead to the multitude of small specks that dot the dressing.In the 1950s, Thousand Island Dressing made of mayo, ketchup and pickle relish became a standard condiment, used on sandwiches and salads alike. The McDonald's Big Mac includes a special sauce, which is really just a variation of Thousand Island Dressing.George Boldt, of Waldorf-Astoria Hotel fame, has also been widely credited with popularizing this condiment when he instructed his world famous maitre d' Oscar Tschirky to put the dressing on the menu at the Waldorf Astoria.
