THREE REALLY RETRO RECIPES
I put these recipes together in honor of Mother’s Day, for the three came from my mother, Madeleine M. St. John. While I (at 70-plus years of age) am retro, she would be even more so, were she yet alive. But while she was at it, she filled our several St. John and many neighbors’ bellies with good eats.
Dungeness crab illustration from Résultats des Campagnes Scientifiques by Albert I, Prince of Monaco (1848–1922) on rawpixel.com.
Sauce Louis: The origins of the recipe for “Crab Louie” (sometimes Louis) are unclear, although most sources say it came from our West Coast. No surprise there, as California and the Pacific Northwest are the richest sources in the U.S. for Dungeness crab, the preferred crustacean for the dish.
Seattle Washington’s Olympic Club claimed provenance beginning in 1904 with a story that the visiting tenor Enrico Caruso ordered it off the menu so often during his tour there that no crab was left in the pantry.
Two slightly later origin stories, both dated 1914, place its invention at Solari’s restaurant in San Francisco or by Louis Davenport, owner of the Davenport Hotel in Spokane, Washington.
No matter its beginnings, the salad called Crab Louie always is assembled from lettuce, crabmeat, halved hard-cooked eggs, cold poached asparagus spears and tomato, all slathered with Louie (sometimes Louis) sauce, a sort of savory Thousand Island salad dressing.
My mother’s recipe for her “Sauce Louis” gave me my first definition of the color pink. And my first kitchen tears: I remember grating the onion half on the small holes of the box grater to come up with the requisite two tablespoons of “onion juice.”
Being Belgian, she constructed a faux-Crab Louis salad on which to slather her Sauce Louis that was centered around shrimp (the preferred Belgian shellfish) rather than crab. She also subbed celery instead of asparagus; the whole Lilly Pulitzer, pink-and-green thing got topped with some black olives.
RECIPE: Sauce Louis
Makes a bit less than 2 cups. From Madeleine St. John.
Ingredients
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup chile sauce (NOT ketchup)
2 tablespoons grated onion juice
1 cup whipping cream, whipped into soft peaks
A few drops of lemon juice, to taste
Directions
Combine all ingredients together and refrigerate until serving time.
Chicken Divan: This was another favorite of my mom’s and as comfortable a food as we kids can remember. Where Chicken Divan got its name, very few seem to be certain.
Fact-checking doesn’t make sense when one source, for example, proffers the idea that this simplest, gooiest, most down-home of home cookings is named after the “divan,” or the French word for an Arab sultan’s chambers, hence “a great hall or meeting place,” hence the “reclining couch” therein. Pish posh.
The original recipe may likely have sprung from the hands of a home cook, a Mrs. Fletcher, who won a recipe-writing contest held in 1955 by the Divan Parisien Restaurant at the Chatham Hotel in New York City. Prize money? $5 dollars. (About $55 dollars today. Still, “whoo-hoo.”)
Anyway, for all of the 1950s and 1960s, Chicken Divan was a runaway buffet blowout at parties and family gatherings all over the United States. This, I know.
It also was one of my mother’s great soothings to those in need of comfort and care. I remember schlepping casseroles of it over to nearly any mom of our acquaintance who had just come home from the hospital with a new child. Ordinarily, because we and they were Roman Catholic, this seemed to occur weekly.
I’ve constructed my mother’s recipe as best as I can remember, having watched it being made dozens of times. In alternatives to the classic recipe, she did not make a base of béchamel or Mornay sauce, nor use only grated “Parmesan” cheese. In classic 1950s fashion, she used cream of mushroom soup and grated cheddar cheese.
Also, as a turn on the classic recipe, she added cooked rice to stretch it and give it more heft. Everyone always loved it, just so.
RECIPE: Totally Retro Chicken Divan
It’s best if the broccoli and rice are prepared just underdone because they will spend some additional time cooking. Makes 1 large casserole; serves 6-8.
Ingredients
4 cups cooked broccoli florets (steamed fresh or cooked frozen)
4 cups cooked boneless chicken breast, large dice or shredded
4 cups cooked white rice
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
1 and 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (the orange kind)
Directions
Lavishly butter a 9x13-inch baking dish. In a large bowl, mix together the broccoli, chicken and rice. Heat the mushroom soup with the mayonnaise and sour cream, stirring, until you make of it a sauce.
Put the chicken, broccoli and rice mixture in the baking dish and pour over it the sauce, nudging the sauce down into the other ingredients. Coat the top evenly with the shredded cheese. Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 30 minutes or until the cheese begins to bubble.
“French” Dressing: The third recipe is a crimson-colored salad dressing, a jar of which I remember always, always on the top shelf of the refrigerator, like an eternal flame. (It reminds me of what Kraft calls its “Catalina” dressing.) A St. John has eaten this—I do not exaggerate here—hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times.
RECIPE: Madeleine St John’s “French” Salad Dressing
Makes a little over 1 and 1/2 cups.
Ingredients
1 cup neutral salad oil
1/3 cup vinegar (white wine or cider) or lemon juice
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
3 tablespoons ketchup
1 and 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon powdered mustard
5-6 drops Tabasco sauce
1 tablespoon grated onion (or dash of onion powder)
1/2 clove garlic grated (or dash of garlic powder)
Directions
Mix all ingredients together in a jar and shake well. When you get toward the bottom of the jar, and if only a small amount remains, add a small amount of mayonnaise to taste and shake again for a creamy version.