The
year was 1893 and an ambitious and enterprising Swiss had left his
job as head waiter at the fashionable Delmonico's Restaurant in New York
to join the staff of a new hotel being built by William Waldorf Astor on
ground he inherited from his father, John Jacob Astor, Jr., at the corner
of 5th Avenue and 34th Street. The new job would lead to a career
more successful than he dreamed, and he would be credited for the invention
of at least three foods Americans would enjoy throughout the 20th Century,
although he never was, and never claimed to be, a chef. His name
was Oscar Tschirky, and he is famous for presenting to the world Eggs
Benedict, Thousand
Island Dressing, and the Waldorf
Salad. He was also the man who defined to Americans the job of
"maitre d'hotel" or "maitre d'," the one in charge of a grand restaurant
catering to the great and near-great among fashionable diners.
After the Waldorf Hotel opened in 1893 New Yorkers began enjoying an unusual salad on the menu, consisting of just three ingredients: cubed apples, chopped celery and mayonnaise. It was called the Waldorf salad, reputed to be the brain child of Oscar Tschirky, and it was an instant hit. Later, chopped walnuts were added, then grapes or raisins. Over the years other variations have arisen, such as subsituting cut up pears for the apples and low fat yogurt for the mayonnaise, or adding pineapple chunks or orange wedges in place of the celery, flavoring the mayonnaise with lemon juice or cinnamon or nutmeg or blue cheese, or perhaps serving the salad with turkey, chicken or ham to make it a luncheon entree. Cooks are forever trying to improve the salad, or put their stamp on it, but whenever one tastes chunks of apple and celery slathered in mayonnaise with bits of nuts, no matter what else is there, one is apt to think "Waldorf Salad!" Perhaps the most obvious addition occurred mid-century when the diced apple, celery and walnuts were stirred into lemon jello and molded for ladies' luncheons, served with a dressing of mayo mixed with whipped cream.
And of course that is just what Oscar wanted -- to attract to the restaurant the thought as well as the presence of anyone interested in food and the fashions of food. In 1897 more of the Astor land made way for another hotel, the Astoria, and together the establishment was known as the Waldorf-Astoria,which remained at 34th Street until 1928 when the land was sold to make way for the Empire State Building. A new Waldorf-Astoria Hotel was built on Park Avenue where it stands today, and where the coffee shop is named Oscar's after the famous maitre d' who spent many decades directing the menu, the meals and the service at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. In a beautiful bas-relief wall you can see an image of Oscar himself, overseeing the needs of the Waldorf's guests today.
The recipe that Oscar oversaw undoubtedly went something like this:
CLASSIC WALDORF SALAD
Serves 4
1 cup diced celery
1 cup diced firm red
apples (skin left on)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
(optional)
1/2 cup sliced seedless
grapes or 1/2 cup raisins (optional)
1/2 cup mayonnaise.
Stir mayonnaise into
the other ingredients.
Serve cold on a bed
of lettuce.
Other variations can be extemporized ad infinitum, but if you need some inspiration, consult the following sites:
Who
Cooked That Up?is copyrighted 1999 by J.J. Schnebel
all rights reserved
for your pleasure and enlightenment
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