Comeback sauce is a

dipping sauce A dip or dipping sauce is a common condiment for many types of food. Dips are used to add flavor or texture to a food, such as pita bread, dumplings, crackers, chopped raw vegetables, fruits, seafood, cubed pieces of meat and cheese, potato ch ...

used for fried foods or as a

salad dressing A salad dressing is a sauce for salads, used on virtually all leafy salads. Dressings may also be used in preparing salads of beans (e.g., three bean salad), noodle or pasta salads and antipasti, and forms of potato salad. A dressing may even ...

in the cuisine of central

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

. Its main ingredients are mayonnaise and ketchup or chili sauce. It was created at the

Jackson, Mississippi Jackson is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Mississippi, most populous city of the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city sits on the Pearl River (Mississippi–Louisiana), Pearl River and is locate ...

, restaurant The Rotisserie. It is generally known throughout the southern US.

Description

The sauce is orange-to-pink and typically a thick liquid. It is spicier than

ranch dressing Ranch dressing is a savory, creamy American salad dressing usually made from buttermilk, salt, garlic, onion, black pepper, and herbs (commonly chives, parsley and dill), mixed into a sauce based on mayonnaise or another oil emulsion. Sour cre ...

and is creamier and less sweet than

barbecue sauce Barbecue sauce (also abbreviated as BBQ sauce) is a sauce used as a marinade, basting, condiment, or topping for meat cooked in the barbecue cooking style, including pork, beef, and chicken. It is a ubiquitous condiment in the Southern United ...

. '' The Takeout'' described it as "a spicier type of Thousand Island salad dressing". ''

Southern Living ''Southern Living'' is a lifestyle magazine aimed at readers in the Southern United States featuring recipes, house plans, garden plans, and information about Southern culture and travel. It is published by Birmingham, Alabama Alabama ...

'' described it as "creamy, tangy, sweet, savory, and mildly spicy".

Ingredients and preparation

According to the ''New York Times'', the essential ingredients are garlic and mayonnaise. Similar to Louisiana remoulade, the base of the sauce consists of

mayonnaise Mayonnaise (), colloquially referred to as "mayo" (), is a thick, creamy sauce with a rich and tangy taste that is commonly used on sandwiches, hamburgers, Salad#Bound salads, bound salads, and French fries. It also forms the base for various o ...

and

chili sauce Chili sauce and chili paste are condiments prepared with chili peppers. Chili sauce may be hot, sweet or a combination thereof, and may differ from hot sauce in that many sweet or mild varieties exist, which is typically lacking in hot sauce ...

or ketchup or both. Many recipes also call for the addition of other ingredients such as

Worcestershire sauce Worcestershire sauce or Worcester sauce (UK: ) is a fermented liquid condiment invented by pharmacists John Wheeley Lea and William Henry Perrins in the city of Worcester in Worcestershire, England, during the first half of the 19th century ...

, hot sauce, onion, lemon juice, and seasonings. Modern recipes typically call for ingredients to be assembled in a blender or food processor and processed until well-combined.

Serving

The sauce was originally served as a dressing on iceberg lettuce or as a topping for

saltines A saltine or soda cracker is a thin, usually square, cracker, made from white flour, sometimes yeast (although many are yeast-free), fat, and baking soda, with most varieties lightly sprinkled with coarse salt. It has perforations over its surfac ...

but eventually saw usage as a drizzle on crab cakes or tacos, a sauce for sandwiches, and a dipping sauce for crudites or fried foods. In some restaurants it is served alongside a basket of crackers.

History and importance

The sauce began to appear in Greek restaurants in

from the late 1920s. As of the 1970s and 1980s it was still most commonly found in Jackson's Greek restaurants. It spread from Jackson into other parts of Mississippi and then throughout the south; it is not well known outside of the southern US. Its invention has been credited to one of two restaurants, either the Mayflower Cafe or The Rotisserie, but in a 2016 interview with the ''Clarion-Ledger'', Mayflower owner Jerry Kountouris said "It was The Rotisserie". In 2014, it was the subject of a lecture at the

Southern Foodways Alliance Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA) is an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, dedicated to the documentation, study and exploration of the foodways of the American South. Member-funded, it stage ...

symposium. Food historian Robert St. John called it "the Queen Mother of all Mississippi condiments". ''The Washington Post'' called it a "Southern staple".

Commercial versions

Several restaurants in Jackson offer bottled comeback sauce.

KFC KFC Corporation, doing business as KFC (an abbreviation of Kentucky Fried Chicken), is an American fast food restaurant chain specializing in fried chicken and chicken sandwiches. Headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, it is the world's se ...

offers its version of comeback sauce also outside of the Southeast.https://www.kfc.com/menu/sides-sweets-sauces/comeback-sauce

References