Mom was a fine cook, and if she used a basic mixture of emulsion and tomato sauce for a simple salad at a steak dinner, so be it.
But her version of this sauce needs some catching up with what passes for comeback today. All sorts of exotics have found their way into this combination, and the recipe is well past its salad days. I suspect that because the main ingredients (mayonnaise and ketchup) are available to most people, and since the resulting mixture looks and tastes a lot like Thousand Island without pickle relish, this “Ur-comeback” soon became a popular substitute for bought dressing at home. Its commercial popularity (at least in Jackson) harkens back to the Rotisserie, a restaurant the Dennery family ran at Five Points way back when that part the city was cool, probably around the time poodle skirts were popular.
Nowadays people use comeback for almost everything. I’ve even seen recommendations for it with meats such as chicken and (Lord deliver us) beef. Me, I’ve always liked it on seafood; I do a version of it with a little horseradish, chopped parsley and lemon juice that’s just fine with shrimp or fish. You’re also likely to find another version of it in stores that’s marketed specifically for those deep-fried onion “blossoms” that have become so popular lately. Dare I add that while nobody’s stopping you from dipping a whole Vidalia in some sugar-saturated batter and deep-frying it, by doing so you’re pretty much denying the vegetable’s essential nature as an onion, a vegetable you should have an intimate relationship with already.
Comeback dressing has come to be a signature recipe of our state, so as a Mississippian of any degree, knowing how to make comeback dressing should be as much a part of your repertoire as knowing how to pass a batwing bushhog on a two-lane highway. I’ve even seen it referred to as “Mississippi Comeback”. I like that. If Mississippi were to have any sort of signature dish, then it should be one that beckons her weary children home.
To put it mildly, the ingredients of comeback are a bone of contention. Most recipes for it involve an emulsion combined with something red, which in our locale usually involves a processed tomato. Now, you could probably very well take a little tomato paste and add a bit of vinegar to it, but be nice to yourself and just use chili sauce. There are those who prefer salad dressing instead of mayonnaise, and those who seem to think that cocktail sauce is superior to the more pedestrian chili sauce. As to other additions, I’d stop well short of ground rosemary, but you’re the cook. My version of comeback, like my mother’s, is quite simple, involving not much more than mayonnaise, ketchup and black pepper. She put Worcestershire in there, too, but more for color, I suspect. Any recipe for comeback dressing is always improved by the addition of onion powder and a smidgen of garlic. If you’re serving it with seafood, a little lemon juice in the mixture is a nice touch. 
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To read more by Jesse Yancy, visit www.jesseyancy.com
This article was originally printed in The Local Voice #213 (published September 25, 2014).
To download the PDF of this issue, click here.
