French Dressing is a term used in Britain and the USA in particular, to describe the most common salad dressing in France: the vinaigrette, and its many variations. The dressing is generally accepted to be a type of vinaigrette but often including different ingredients. It seems one of the only countries where the term is not used, is France, where this salad dressing is only ever referred to as a vinaigrette.

History
The term, French Dressing, to describe vinaigrette became popular in Britain and the USA in the 1880s and as salads increased in popularity, many different variations of the condiment emerged.

Interpretations

UK
The British French Dressing is more varied than the American version and the ingredients differ depending on taste. Most common recipes contain olive oil and white or red wine vinegar or lemon juice as a base and can often contain salt, sugar, pepper, mustard and garlic. There is no set manufactured French dressing recipe and companies often make several different types of dressing to suit different tastes.

USA
In the United States of America, French dressing is a known as a type of salad dressing, also called Catalina dressing, containing sugar and tomato ketchup. This French dressing can be "white" or "red" and is essentially a vinaigrette. It is often sold bottled in the USA. People in some parts of the Southern United States (especially in the Biloxi, Mississippi, area) pour French dressing on pizza. Midwestern folklore has it that the condiment's name stems from its invention by the wife of Lucius French, a founder of Hazleton, Indiana. French's intense aversion to vegetables brought him to the brink of scurvy several times; his wife supposedly created the tangy, unconventional dressing as a means of coaxing the bellicose French to consume salads. The story is likely apocryphal, however.