Subject: HoJo French dressing
From: Dawn
Date: 3/26/2022, 10:00 AM
To: phaedrus@hungrybrowser.com
On 3/25/2022 6:27 PM, Dawn wrote:
I am searching for the recipe that Howard Johnson had for French Dressing,
which they were famous for back in the 70s and 80s, I believe.
I could only find their recipe for Thousand Island. Would you have a way
to find the FRENCH DRESSING recipe?
Thank you for any help you can provide,
Sincerely,
Dawn
Hi Dawn,
Sorry, I had no success locating Howard Johnson's French dressing recipe. Most chain
restaurants make such things at a central commissary and ship them to the individual
restaurants. According to the book "A History of Howard Johnson's", HoJo's dressings
were made this way. The recipe is likely still locked away somewhere. No one would have
known it except the commissary employees and the corporation's management. The employees
at the local HoJo's would not have known how to make the dressing, although they might
have known a store brand that they could use as a substitute if they ran out of the real
thing.
I also had no success finding a Jacques Pepin recipe for French Dressing. Even if I had,
there's no guarantee that it would be the same one used for the restaurants, but it might
be similar. Chef Pepin created many of Howard Johnson's dishes and ingredients.
It does not appear that anyone has been able to create a copycat recipe for the dressing.
I suspect that the spices are difficult to reverse engineer.
There is a photo of the dressing bottle here: Pinterest
The ingredients listed are: "vegetable oil, tomatoes, vinegar, onions, sugar, spices, and garlic."
Sure, what French dressing recipe wouldn't have those? "Spices" is the key: What spices and
how much of each?
I'll post this for reader input. Someone might know of a "tastes-like".
Phaed
