14/07/2024
HISTORY OF CAESAR SALAD
Caesar salad turns 100.
The Caesar salad was invented in 1924 by Italian-American restaurateur Caesar Cardini in Tijuana, Mexico.
This classic dish, traditionally made with romaine lettuce, croutons, Parmesan cheese, and a distinctive dressing of garlic, lemon juice, egg, and Worcestershire sauce, has stood the test of time and remains a favorite among salad enthusiasts worldwide.
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 food myth attributes its invention to Julius Caesar.
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.
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. Cardini's daughter and several other sources have testified that the original recipe used only Worcestershire sauce, not anchovies, mustard, or herbs, which Cardini considered too bold in flavor. Modern recipes typically include anchovies as a key ingredient, and are frequently emulsified or based on mayonnaise.
