There is only one French salad dressing - mustard vinaigrette with shallots. This guy learned how to make it. No reason to ever use anything else other than laziness (I can be lazy and I like to put Ken's Steak House salad dressing from Costco on tomato slices).
The only French variation is to add tarragon or to use tarragon vinegar. I don't care much for tarragon flavor although it grows vigorously in my garden. Tarragon Chicken is a classic, but I don't care for it.
Isn't it strange that commercial "French Dressing" and "Russian Dressing" are American inventions? So is commercial "Italian dressing." Well, they all taste ok. Russian is great on a roast beef sammich.
What is a genuine Italian salad dressing? Salt, olive oil, vinegar (3 parts oil to one part vinegar). Toss it extensively - 30 times seems to be an Italian standard. You can add a few drops of Balsamic to that if you want, or use lemon juice (very Sicilian) instead of vinegar. Without salt, salad is not edible. It's barely edible anyway because it is rodent food and minimally-digestible by humans. I figure if you want to eat greens, eat a herbivore instead because they have the tools to break down and digest cellulose and thus the contents of greens. We do not.
