Salad dressing, mayonnaise-type, light

Fun Facts

1. Using oil and vinegar to dress greens and vegetables dates to Babylonian times, some 2,000 years ago. The word salad can be traced to the ancient Romans who sprinkled salt on grasses and herbs, calling it herba salata. It was not long before Roman and Greek cooks experimented with combinations of olive oil, vinegar, and salt, then adding wine, honey, and a fermented fish sauce known as garum. The latter was made by soaking the intestines and other pieces of mackerel, salmon, sardines, and shad in brine and herbs.
2. Salad dressings were made from scratch in home kitchens until the turn of the nineteenth century when restaurant owners began packaging and selling their own dressings. One of the first was Joe Marzetti, proprietor of a Columbus, Ohio, restaurant. In 1919, Marzetti began to bottle a variety of dressings from old country recipes.
3. The primary ingredient in salad dressing is oil. In the United States, soybean oil is the most common type used in the production of salad dressings. Olive, peanut, and sunflower oils may also be used.