In Nashville we take it for granted that everyone gets to experience a Faucon Salad every now and then. In truth it’s unique to Nashville. The original Faucons Café was downtown on Union Avenue and owned by a very talented New Orleans chef named Xavier Faucon. He ran the restaurant until 1926 when he retired while still refusing to spill the beans on the Faucon Salad dressing recipe.
That’s okay, everyone deserves one secret recipe. More than one starts to seem needy. Many people claim to have obtained the “original” recipe and in fact it can be found in a host of Nashville cookbooks, (one recipe even includes green peppers) but the dressing was a Chef Faucon secret. That does not however mean we shouldn’t all try and make our own interpretation of this delicious salad. A prized possession in this house is a pair of small silver plated (well once they were) pitchers that had belonged to Faucons Café. They are engraved with the word Faucon in beautiful script. I’m not quite sure why I have them, but my granny was a great collector of anything in antique sales so it’s a fairly good guess she found these. We grew up eating my mom’s version of a Faucon Salad. She made the dressing with real Roquefort cheese and a kind of oil and vinegar mix with some garlic thrown in. Iceberg lettuce was and is traditional along with hard boiled eggs and crumbled bacon. Mom’s salad was made in pre-wedge days. She would have fainted back in the day if someone had served her a big wedge of lettuce instead of nicely chopped bite sized pieces. It’s a good guess the original Faucon Salad was served that way as well. Now when I make it at home it’s a wedge – sorry Mom – and the dressing has blue cheese with a buttermilk mayo base. I even have a secret easy method for bacon bits that Chef Xavier could never have imagined. This is a recipe worth sharing. It’s easy to make, and such a people pleaser – even my non- veggie eating husband adores it. And talk about a pretty plate – this has it all. Please make this salad to serve at home, it doesn’t need to be reserved as a restaurant treat. You’ll be so glad you did. Enjoy!
Ingredients
Dressing
½ cup buttermilk
½ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup crumbled blue cheese (more for topping salad)
Juice of half a lemon
1 small garlic clove, minced
½ tsp salt
Dash of hot sauce
1 tsp sugar
Optional: 1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
Salad
1 head iceberg lettuce cored and chopped into 4 wedges
2 hard boiled eggs chopped
2 tablespoons of salad bacon bits
Directions
Add all salad dressing ingredients to a jar and give it several good shakes.
Put bacon bits on a paper towel and microwave for about 20 seconds. (I’m not kidding – it makes them crisp!)
To serve: Place a lettuce wedge on each of four plates, top with dressing, chopped eggs, bacon bits and extra blue cheese if desired.
