We all know the Waldorf salad, it is a quintessential restaurant salad. A traditional Waldorf salad typically consists of apples, walnuts, celery and mayo or a dressing based on mayonnaise. The salad was first made in about 1893 in NYC at the Waldorf Hotel. Oscar Tschirky, the maitre d'hotel at the hotel, is usually credited for having created the recipe but many conflicting stories have been told about who really made the salad. Oscar Tschirky has claimed the credit for having created a number of other dishes at Waldorf Hotel, which includes Eggs Benedict. There is also an alternate story that the recipe was made by a lunchroom chain in the early 1900s called Waldorf LunchSystem. The company had an apple as their logo and was started in the 1920s. However, the Waldorf salad was featured in an 1896 cookbook titled "Cookbook by 'Oscar of Waldorf'". The salad is usually served on top of lettuce, often with dried fruit like raisins or chopped dates.

Trivia: The salad has also been used many times in popular culture. The Cole Porter musical Anything Goes has a song (You're the Top) that makes a reference to it with the line: "You're the top, you're a Waldorf salad". It is also used as the title on a Fawlty Towers episode (1979) where an American guest is frustrated with Basil Fawlty for his incompetence and inability to make the salad. Basile states "I think we are out of Waldorfs." and also asks "What's a Waldorf anyway, a walnut that has gone off?". Waldorf salads are often mentioned in a 1991 Bret Easton Ellis novel, American Psycho. Evelyn Williams, Patrick Bateman's fiance, worries about whether her guests like her Waldorf salad at her Christmas party.

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