I used to love Thousand Island dressing and it was one thing I remember making in HomeEc and it had . . . EGGS in it (hardboiled ones) -- never ate it again! But that was one thing we learned in HomeEc -- how to make your own salad dressings. I still do - unless it is for a recipe (which calls for a specific type of dressing) I never buy the bottled stuff.

Recipes says "on pinch chives", which sound ambiguous to me.

Does the bottled thou island have hard boiled eggs? Anyone know? Sounds disgusting IMO but my kids love it.

The bottled dressings I've seen all use pickle relish instead of eggs.

Jarred or bottled Thousand Island dressing does not contain hardboiled eggs. But any decent homemade dressing does....as well as chopped pickles or relish.

I remember growing up in the 50's with homemade Thousand Islands my mom made from mayo, ketchup, her green tomato and apple sweet relish and a hardboiled egg. We had it over wedges of iceberg lettuce. I still enjoy it to this day and often make it myself. And I use bottled Thousand Islands as a burger topping.....my version of "secret sauce" :-))

It is really just a sweeter and less spicy version of Russian dressing.

Does anyone know what the imperial sauce is? Everything I find on google doesn't seem likely it was widely available when this recipe was printed. eta, I kept digging and it looks as if it was some kind of soy sauce or maybe a fish sauce called "Skill's Rich Imperial Sauce"

Thank you Writersblock and Gardengal.

Sorry I voiced my strong dislike about the eggs.

No problem, mamapinky. I don't like the eggs, either, but then I never did like thousand island, no matter the recipe.

There is no requirement to include the eggs........if you don't like them, leave them out :-)

Agreed! The point is to have 'islands" (little chopped bits). There's the original, and then there's interpretation. :)

I make my own dressings and have for 25 years. I do make a couple dressings with soft boiled egg. One is just pressed through a sieve. (islands). Another is in the blender. I use greek yogurt, not mayo. Lots of lemon. Not often but if I want creamy that is my go-to solution. Variations on what I have, fresh herbs, nuts, toasted seeds.

Imperial Sauce may be Worcestershire sauce. I say that only because of the word "imperial" which makes me think of England.

I thought Imperial Sauce was the sauce for crab (and other seafood) imperial.

This is so cool! I'd never heard of Crab Imperial before. Another new thing!

Apparently, it's a classic from the Chesapeake area. It's mayonnaise, half and half, Old Bay Seasoning, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce (good guess WalnutCreek!).

OId Bay (now made by McCormick) claims 18 herbs and spices including paprika, red pepper, black pepper, celery seed and salt (celery salt is number one).

Spice House's Chesapeake seasoning (their answer to Old Bay): salt, mustard flour, paprika, celery, chili pepper, black and red pepper, dill weed, dill seed, caraway, allspice, cardamom, thyme, ginger, powdered bay leaves, mace, cinnamon, savory and cloves. Sodium content: 626.72 mg per teaspoon; 19.17% sodium

I think the Old Bay seasoning is a recent addition, or very local. When I was a kid I never had it with that in it, but there was sometimes finely chopped celery.

But things change, just like the way what is Lobster Newburg these days bears little resemblance to the Lobster Newburg of restaurants during my childhood, which was usually served in a patty shell, not the lobster shell.

But Julia evidently made hers that way, and now she's all sacred and all, so hers is the only way now.

ETA I actually meant lobster thermidor, but oh, well.

I did a lot of quick research on Imperial Sauce. Just the sauce. There were far more variations of what to put in with the crab including mushrooms, which sounds foul to me. It seems from what I can gather that the recipe was invented for making palatable canned or pre-cleaned (rather than live a minute ago) lump crab. I didn't find a real origin story or recipe, but the ingredients I posted were common to almost all of them, and to the ones that didn't have any extras, like hot sauce or the celery. A couple outliers didn't have Worcestershire. All had Old Bay, other brand Old Bay, or "seafood seasoning" aka plain wrap Old Bay. OTOH, I won't ask how old you are, but Old Bay was created in 1939. I remember we had it at home in my youth, but apparently it wasn't really marketed much outside of the Chesapeake Bay area. Probably grocers who knew it from there, or whose customers requested it, brought it in. Therefore, while most of the recipes I've found seem to be from that area, it's highly likely that versions of it made outside of Maryland would have different seasoning.

OTOH, being the curious type, I did a lookup (not really research) on Newberg. I found many mentions of Lobster Newberg at Delmonico's, as well as some other origin stories, but Delmonico's version of the dish seems most famous, whatever the truth of it is. One site has this recipe from the book by the chef there who tweaked it (in all likelihood, it was originally a French dish that got its name and its tweaks at Delmonico's): "Cook six lobsters each weighing about two pounds in boiling salted water for twenty-five minutes. Twelve pounds of live lobster when cooked yields from two to two and a half pounds of meat with three to four ounces of coral. When cold detach the bodies from the tails and cut the latter into slices, put them into a sautoir, each piece lying flat, and add hot clarified butter; season with salt and fry lightly on both sides without coloring; moisten to their height with good raw cream; reduce quickly to half; and then add two or three spoonfuls of Madeira wine; boil the liquid once more only, then remove and thicken with a thickening of egg yolks and raw cream. Cook without boiling, incorporating a little cayenne and butter; then arrange the pieces in a vegetable dish and pour the sauce over."

It's likely that the pastry you remember was there because the patty shell itself was wildly popular back then. Thence to Julia's lobster shells. An advantage of the lobster shells is that they're free and disposable.

the following AD proves imperial sauce and Worcestershire sauce.

add listing imperial sauce and Worcestershire sauce as to different things.

War Garden, the Worcestershire sauce is IN the Imperial sauce! :)

What an interesting recipe, war garden. I don't think I've ever seen cochineal in a home recipe before.