While still under the influence of a fortnight in the Sandwich Islands, I prepared a salad for our supper this evening using ingredients which we ate while on Oahu and Maui. It being Advent, when tangerines are commonly found at the grocers, I decided to make a salad dressing out of fresh-squeezed tangerine juice, to which I added Hawaiian sweet soy sauce, olive oil, pulverized garlic, and Japanese rice wine vinegar. When I presented this to Mem-sahib, she asked what I called the dressing and I pronounced it "tangerine vinaigrette." "There is no such thing," she responded. To which I replied, "There must be in that you are, at this moment, eating it."
One wonders: how far may one depart from the traditional ingredients of "vinaigrette" and still call the result "vinaigrette"?
PS: This is NOT a food thread.
