Cooking with Books: Helen Corbitt's Poppy Seed Dressing

We don't cook like our parents or grandparents did. Sure, we often have family favorites we fix regularly. Maybe chili. Spaghetti sauce. That weird holiday Jello mold. But there's lots less margarine, cream of something soup, ground beef, and canned vegetables in my kitchen than there was in my mother's. Not a judgement...that's just the way it is.

However...some of the best cookbooks are vintage ones. They offer a glimpse of times gone by and can be ways to take a time capsule back to a church potluck or Boy Scout dinner.

This one is the perfect example. But it takes things to a new level. Helen Corbitt first worked at the Houston Country Club and then Austin's Driskill Hotel before Stanley Marcus wooed her to become Director of Food Services at the venerable Neiman-Marcus. Included in Helen Corbitt's Cookbook (published in 1957) are recipes for the avocado mousse the Duke of Windsor inquired about, a plethora of sauces for meats and vegetables, and this one. It is simply the best poppy seed dressing I've ever tasted. Better than any other recipe or bottled version I've ever tried. THIS is the reason to hang on to a tattered, dog-eared cookbook or two.

I've included all of Ms. Corbitt's delightful prose. It puts you right in her kitchen as you make it with her.

Poppy-Seed Dressing
From Helen Corbitt's Cookbook.
Makes 3 1/2 cups.

I would like to tell a story of a dressing designed for fruits. Where it originated I have no idea I remember having it served to me in New York so many years ago I hate to recall. Rumors extend hither and yon that I created it; I hasten to deny this; but I did popularize it when I realized that on the best grapefruit in the whole wide world (Texas grapefruit) it was the most delectable dressing imaginable. Today there is hardly a restaurant or home in Texas that does not have some kind of poppy-seed dressing. The recipe I use has been in demand to the point of being ludicrous and, strange as it may seem, the men like it - a few even put it on their potatoes. So here it is!

1 1/2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons dry mustard
2 teaspoons salt
2/3 cup vinegar
3 tablespoons onion juice
2 cups salad oil - but never olive oil (I use Wesson)
3 tablespoons poppy seeds

Mix sugar, mustard, salt, and vinegar. Add onion juice and stir it in thoroughly. Add oil slowly, beating constantly, and continue to beat until thick. Add poppy seeds and beat for a few minutes. Store in a cool place or the refrigerator, but not near the freezing coil.

It is easier to make with an electric mixer or blender, using medium speed, but if your endurance is good you may make it by hand with a rotary blender. The onion juice is obtained by grating a large white onion on the fine side of a grater, or putting in an electric blender, then straining. (Prepare to weep in either case.) If the dressing separates, pour off the clear part and start all over, adding the poppy-seed mixture slowly, but it will not separate unless it becomes too cold or too hot. It is delicious on fruit salads of any kind, but has a special affinity for grapefruit, and in combinations where grapefruit is present. One of my most popular buffet salad bowls at the Houston Country Club, where I was manager, was finely shredded red cabbage, thinly sliced avocado, and halves of fresh grapes with poppy-seed dressing, but then, as I said before, poppy-seed dressing fans like it on anything.

Brava, Helen. Brava.