Betty Crocker's Green Salad with Homemade French Dressing

This recipe for Green Salad with Classic French Dressing combines crisp salad greens with a simple dressing made from olive oil, vinegar, salt, minced garlic, pepper, and a dash of “flavor extender” for greater impact. Toss the greens with oil until they glisten, then add the mixed dressing ingredients. For convenience, the dressing can be pre-shaken in a bottle. With either method, serve immediately for best results.

These instructions come from Betty Crocker’s Dinner for Two Cook Book, published in 1958. They appear in the section called, “American Favorites.”

In American cuisine, “French Dressing” has come to mean a creamy dressing that ranges in color from pale orange to a vibrant red. That is obviously not the case here, as it refers instead to a very simple dressing with relatively minimal ingredients. What is interesting is the inclusion of a “flavor extender,” which is not commonly found in modern grocery stores. The term “flavor extender” refers to a category of food ingredients designed to enhance the taste of a primary flavor in a dish, so their exact ingredients could range widely. By amplifying the desired flavor profile, such products allow for reduced use of the main flavoring while still achieving the intended taste. This approach was especially valuable when managing fluctuating ingredient costs, or addressing natural variations in flavor intensity across different batches of raw materials. For a savory dish, such as this one, the equivalent would simply be monosodium glutamate, or MSG. MSG is a flavor enhancer derived from sodium and glutamic acid, an amino acid naturally occurring in various foods. It represents the purest form of umami, recognized as the fifth basic taste alongside sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.

Here is the recipe, as described in the cookbook:

Green Salad with Classic French Dressing