The Unexpected Condiment Lucille Ball Added To Her Salad Dressing

Lucille Ball was part of the historic era known as the Golden Age of Hollywood, a period of time when Tinseltown was dripping in power and extravagance, and releasing some of the most memorable films and television shows of modern times. Ball, of course, was the darling star of "I Love Lucy," and her fans adored her. Similar to celebrity culture today, people were interested in every detail of her life, both in front of the camera, and behind it. She offered up a recipe for salad dressing in a book called "Famous Stars Favorite Foods," printed in 1938, which included an unusual ingredient that's usually equated with burgers and hot dogs: ketchup.

The recipe was quite extensive, especially compared to a basic dressing that can be made in as little as three ingredients, like Nora Ephron's favorite vinaigrette. Ball's dressing combined sugar, water, onion, garlic, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, paprika, celery salt, dry mustard, ketchup, and oil. The ketchup adds sweetness, a little zing from the acid, and some color. In fact, if you look at recipes for French dressing (the condiment that tops Biloxi-style pizza) and Catalina salad dressing (a zesty topping for tacos), you can see the resemblance to both.

I have to admit that after reading Lucille Ball's recipe for salad dressing, the ketchup would be the least of my worries if I were to attempt it in my own kitchen. I'll start by pointing out that it calls for ⅞ of a cup of sugar. Wha? Perhaps this was a normal measurement unit in 1938 but I can't recall seeing any other recipe that required a ⅞-cup of anything. I consider myself fortunate to have a measuring cup set with a ¾ cup unit, but ⅞ is terrifying. After some internet sleuthing, I discovered that ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons equal ⅞ cup. Phew.

I needn't wipe the sweat from my brow just yet, because the first part of the recipe direction says, "Boil sugar and water together until it makes a soft ball in cold water." Whaa?! Isn't this candy-making jargon? Deciding at this point that I would not be attempting Ms. Ball's legendary dressing, I read on. You add grated onion and garlic to the lemon juice and vinegar to infuse the liquids, and then you strain the solids out and combine the vinegar and lemon juice with the rest of the ingredients, including that soft sugar ball in the pool of water.

Whether this recipe turns out a delicious result or not, I couldn't tell you. But I think that the creation of this salad dressing could have made for an especially hilarious episode of "I Love Lucy."