Caesar salad

History

The salad's creation is generally attributed to the restaurateur Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who operated restaurants in Mexico and the United States. Cardini lived in San Diego, but ran one of his restaurants, Caesar's, in Tijuana, Mexico, to attract American customers seeking to circumvent the restrictions of Prohibition. His daughter, Rosa, recounted that her father invented the salad at the Tijuana restaurant when a Fourth of July rush in 1924 depleted the kitchen's supplies. Cardini made do with what he had, adding the dramatic flair of table-side tossing by the chef. Some other accounts of the history state that Alex Cardini, Caesar Cardini's brother, made the salad, and that the salad was previously named the "Aviator Salad" because it was made for aviators who traveled over during Prohibition. A number of Cardini's staff have also said that they invented the dish. A popular myth attributes its invention to Julius Caesar. A 2024 book confirmed the claim that Caesar Cardini originated the recipe. Livio Santini's son, Aldo, countered that his father provided the recipe while working as a cook in Cardini's restaurant.

The American chef and writer Julia Child said that she had eaten a Caesar salad at Cardini's restaurant in her youth during the 1920s, made with whole romaine lettuce leaves, which were meant to be lifted by the stem and eaten with the fingers, tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, coddled eggs, Parmesan, and croutons made with garlic-infused oil. In 1946, the newspaper columnist Dorothy Kilgallen wrote of a Caesar containing anchovies, differing from Cardini's version:

The big food rage in Hollywood—the Caesar salad—will be introduced to New Yorkers by Gilmore's Steak House. It's an intricate concoction that takes ages to prepare and contains (zowie!) lots of garlic, raw or slightly coddled eggs, croutons, romaine, anchovies, parmeasan cheese, olive oil, vinegar and plenty of black pepper.

In a 1952 interview, Cardini said the salad became well known in 1937, when Manny Wolf, story editor and Paramount Pictures writer's department head, provided the recipe to Hollywood restaurants.

In the 1970s, Child published a recipe in her book From Julia Child's Kitchen, based on an interview with Cardini's daughter, in which the ingredients are tossed one-at-a-time with the lettuce leaves.

Dressing

Bottled Caesar dressings are produced and marketed by many companies, including Cardini's, Bolthouse Farms, Ken's Foods, Marzetti, Newman's Own, Panera Bread, Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods Market. The trademark brands Cardini's, Caesar Cardini's and Original Caesar Dressing are all claimed to date to February 1950, but were registered decades later.

Ingredients

Common ingredients in many recipes: :* Romaine lettuce :* olive oil :* crushed garlic :* salt :* Dijon mustard :* black pepper :* lemon juice :* Worcestershire sauce :* anchovies :* whole eggs or egg yolks, raw, poached or coddled :* grated Parmesan cheese :* croutons

Variations include varying the leaf, adding meat such as grilled chicken or bacon, or omitting ingredients such as anchovies and eggs. While the original Caesar's in Tijuana uses lime juice in their current recipe, most modern recipes use lemon juice or vinegar.

Some chefs experiment more broadly with variations of the salad, using the familiar, appealing "Caesar" name to attract diners to dishes with a similar hit of "umami, fat, and tons of salt" that otherwise bear little resemblance to the original.

References

References

1. (2009). "David Burke's New American Classics". Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
2. (5 November 1956). "Cesar Cardini, Creator of Salad, Dies at 60". [[Los Angeles Times]].
3. (21 September 2003). "Rosa Cardini". The Telegraph.
4. Ryan, Patrick Spaulding. (31 December 2022). "Una Corrida Extraordinaria".
5. Grant, Dorothy. (15 June 2007). "Hail to all fathers, and hail Caesar!".
6. "The History of Caesar Salad".
7. Birrell, Nicki. (July 4, 2024). "Caesar Centenary: What's the story behind the famous salad?". [[The New Zealand Herald]].
8. (2009). "Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language". [[Random House]].
9. Poblete, Claudio. (2024-07-12). "Caesar: La Ensalada Mas Famosa". Larousse.
10. Jinich, Pati. (2024-07-01). "The Century-Long Saga of the Caesar Salad".
11. (1975). "From Julia Child's Kitchen". Alfred A. Knopf.
12. Kilgallen, Dorothy. (1946-08-02). "The Voice of Broadway". The News-Herald (Franklin, Pennsylvania).
13. (27 August 2014). "Hail, Caesar's salad". Stuff.
14. "The History of Caesar Salad".
15. (7 March 2001). "Great Caesar's Ghost! Where's My Anchovy?". The New York Times.
16. (26 October 2023). "The Best Caesar Salad Dressings {{!}} Taste Test".
17. (8 February 2023). "12 Best Grocery Store Caesar Dressings, Ranked Worst To Best".
18. "Serial numbers 73426710 "Cardini's", registered 1983 by Caesar Cardini Foods".
19. "Serial numbers 73782270 "The Original Caesar Dressing" and "Caesar Cardini's", registered 1989 by Dolefam Corporation, which later merged with T. Marzetti".
20. "Caesar Salad". Encyclopedia of American Foods.
21. Gora, L. Sasha. (22 May 2019). "The surprising truth about Caesar salad". BBC.
22. Cushing, Ellen. (2024-04-17). "Something Weird Is Happening With Caesar Salads".