The Culinary Scene In Thousand Islands

The Thousand Island dressing is known and loved worldwide. But the culinary scene in Thousand Islands goes beyond just the world's favorite salad dressing.

More than a dozen pioneering winemakers, brewers and distillers have harnessed ingredients from the region into award-winning craft beverages giving new and old visitors alike a reason to visit the 1000 Islands.

Probably because there is a micro-climate of moist air that exists along the 1000 Islands thanks to the crystal-clear, fresh waters of the St. Lawrence River and eastern Lake Ontario. Combined with fertile land shaped by four distinct and dramatic seasons, it creates a climate ripe for growing high-quality ingredients. These high-quality ingredients are most required for the craft beverage scene.

Craft beverage producers are just now tapping the amazing potential for what this land of woods and water can create.

Visit in the spring and smell the sweet aroma of maple sugar shacks on both sides of the US/Canada border. Apple orchards are scattered throughout the region, making autumn a happy season for visitors to savor the cider and fresh-made donuts.

Many also enjoy a taste of the rural life on the 1000 Islands Agricultural Tour, which includes stops at more than a dozen farms, wineries and crop stands.

The 1000 Islands is a place of many traditions, including the Shore Dinner – guiding 1000 Islands visitors to a successful day of fishing is a tradition that stretches back more than a century. The first fishing guides rowed wealthy clients to fishing hotspots along the water and would later treat them to a special island meal known as the Shore Dinner. Today’s fishing guides are equipped with more modern fishing equipment but still serve the traditional Shore Dinner and the recipe is almost unchanged in more than 100 years.

Today’s fishing guides are equipped with more modern fishing equipment, but still serve the traditional Shore Dinner and the recipe is almost unchanged in more than 100 years.

Following a successful day of fishing, the guide takes clients to a scenic location – sometimes on an island – and starts a wood-fueled fire to cook the day’s catch. While the guide is fileting the catch, sandwiches of pork fatback (or bacon substitute) and onion are served. The freshly fried filets are served with a garden salad with Thousand Island Dressing, salt potatoes popularized in nearby Syracuse, New York, and locally grown sweet corn.

Dessert is French toast with locally made maple syrup and occasionally cream with a shot of whisky or flavored spirit. It’s all washed down with “guide’s coffee.” The meal is a tradition as deep as the channels in the 1000 Islands.

Of course we have to come to the Thousand Island Dressing. While it was created here, no one can agree on how.

There are two prevailing origin tales of the famous dressing and both include George Boldt, who built one of the 1000 Islands’ most famous sites: Boldt Castle.

Legend has it that while cruising among the islands on a yacht around the turn of the 20th century, a ship steward found that the ingredients normally used in his salad dressing were missing. Using locally grown ingredients on board, he created a dressing so impressive that the yacht owner named it after the beautiful region from which it came. That yacht owner, George Boldt, added the recipe to the menu at the hotel he ran, the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.

The rest is history.

The second tale has a bit more humbling origin. It centers on Sophia LaLonde, the wife of a fishing guide in Clayton, New York, who would take clients onto the water to fish similar to how today’s charter captains lead visitors to bountiful catches.

Mr LaLonde would treat his customers to a “shore dinner” of the day’s catch and it included a peculiar salad dressing developed by Mrs LaLonde from local ingredients. One such customer was silent film star May Irwin, who loved the dressing and asked for the recipe before sharing it with one of her New York City friends and 1000 Islands enthusiast George Boldt. At the same time, the recipe was added to the menu at the Herald Hotel in Clayton, where Ms Irwin liked to stay. The Herald is now known as the Thousand Islands Inn and still stands in downtown Clayton.