The French dressing was originally a simple vinaigrette made of oil and vinegar, but it gradually became the gooey, sweet, tomato-inflected dressing known today. The French vinaigrette does trace its origin to France and is still widely consumed.
Starting in the early twentieth century, American recipes for French dressing often added other flavorings to the vinaigrette, including Worcestershire sauce, onion juice, ketchup, sugar, and Tabasco sauce, but kept the name.
The first recipe bearing a title of French dressing appeared in The Ladies Home Journal in 1900, and afterward it simply became the term used to describe the most common type of salad dressing.
In her 1896 Boston Cooking School Cookbook (the first and original Fannie Farmer Cookbook), the section on Salad Dressings begins with French Dressing, which calls for simply oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.
In 1925, the Kraft Cheese Company entered the salad products business with the purchase of several regional mayonnaise manufacturers. They also bought the Milani Company, which led to the introduction of Kraft’s French dressing. It contained vinegar, sure, but also sugar, tomato, paprika, and other spices. As early as 1931 Kraft was manufacturing French Dressing under their name, and by the 1940s it had also used the Miracle Whip brand name to create Miracle French Dressing - which had just a "leetle" hint of garlic.
History of French dressing
