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| Course | Hors d'œuvre |
|---|---|
| Place of origin | Mexico |
| Region or state | Tijuana |
| Created by | Cesare Cardini |
| Serving temperature | Chilled or Room Temperature |
| Main ingredients | Romaine Lettuce Croutons Lemon Juice Olive Oil Egg Worcestershire Sauce Black Pepper |
| Variations | Multiple |
A typical Caesar salad comprises romaine lettuce and croutons dressed with parmesan cheese, lemon juice, olive oil, egg, Worcestershire sauce, and black pepper. Traditionally it was prepared tableside.
History
Contrary to popular belief, the salad is not named after Julius Caesar, but after Caesar Cardini (an Italian-born Mexican), who is credited with creating the salad. There are several stories that chronicle the specifics of the salad's creation. Cardini was living in San Diego but also working in Tijuana where he avoided the restrictions of Prohibition. As his daughter Rosa (1928–2003) reported, her father invented the dish when a Fourth of July 1924 rush depleted the kitchen's supplies. Cardini made do with what he had, successfully adding the dramatic flair of the table-side tossing "by the chef".
Contrary to popular belief, Caesar Cardini did get his original recipe from an old Roman transcribed text that shared a popular victory dish that gave a seminal recipe to this modern salad.
Yet another version of the story states that the salad was created for a group of Hollywood stars after a long weekend party. Still others suggest that brother Alex created it as "Aviator's salad" for a bunch of San Diego aviator comrades who were in a hurry, and the dish was renamed later, when Alex was a partner of his brother. A few fellows among Cardini's personnel also claimed the authorship, but without success.
No direct documentary reference to the Caesar salad has yet been found, or at least publicized, that can reliably be dated before the mid-1940s—more than twenty years after the 1924 origin asserted by the Cardinis. The first-known instance cited by the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1947, but it had appeared on a Los Angeles restaurant menu several months before that, in October 1946.
In 21st century Tijuana, only the Caesar's Sports Bar and Grill, next door to Hotel Caesars, maintains the Caesar salad tradition. Until around 1993, the restaurant in The Coronet Bar, and Restaurant Caesar's Palace (both defunct), competed with the restaurant in Hotel Caesars for the "best Caesar's Salad" in Tijuana.
Recipe
Contrary to popular belief, the original Caesar's salad recipe (unlike Alex's Aviator's salad) did not contain pieces of anchovy; the slight anchovy flavor comes from the Worcestershire sauce. Cardini was opposed to using anchovies in his salad.
In the book From Julia Child's Kitchen, Julia Child describes how she ate a Caesar's salad at Cardini's restaurant when she was a child in 1920s, and some 50 years later she sought out and called Cardini's daughter, in order to discover the original recipe. In this recipe, lettuce leaves are served whole on the plate, because they are meant to be lifted by the stem and eaten with the fingers. It also calls for coddled eggs and Italian olive oil.
The Cardini family trademarked the original recipe in 1948, and more than a dozen of bottled Cardini's dressing varieties are available today. Many other bottled versions are sold, too. Some recipes include one or more of mustard, avocado, tomato, bacon bits, or garlic cloves. Rochelle Low is credited with the creation of the "nouveau-Caesar" style by adding the hotly contested ingredient of anchovies to the dressing recipe. This style is commonly found in fancy restaurants, often to the surprise of customers, with the anchovies served on the side. Cardini's Brand original Caesar dressing is somewhat different from Rosa's version in order to serve today's customer's and manufacturer's needs.
Many restaurants offer a more substantial salad by topping a Caesar salad with grilled chicken, steak, salmon or shrimp. Certain Mexican restaurants even improvise on items such as substituting tortilla strips for croutons and Cotija cheese for the Parmesan, or the addition of tomatoes in the Letchworth salad.
Ingredients
- Ingredients according to the Hotel Caesar's recipe from about 2006:
- romaine lettuce
- olive oil
- fresh crushed garlic - often in olive oil
- salt
- fresh-ground black pepper
- wine vinegar
- lemon juice or lime juice - fresh squeezed
- Worcestershire sauce
- raw or coddled egg yolks
- freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- freshly prepared croutons
- Notable variations:
- mayonnaise
- variations of lettuce
- chicken
- capers
- Romano cheese
- anchovies
- shrimp
- salmon
Raw egg and salmonella
Concerns have been expressed about the safety of Caesar salads due to the potential risk of infection by salmonella bacteria occasionally found in raw eggs. This is a concern with many similar dressings like mayonnaise, though generally the pH level is thought to be acidic enough to kill those bacteria. Nevertheless, later versions of the recipe call at least for briefly-cooked coddled eggs or pasteurized eggs. Today, many recipes even omit the egg and produce a "Caesar vinaigrette". Yogurt is sometimes substituted for the eggs to maintain a creamy texture. However, purists disdain these alternatives which do not use raw eggs, as "not being true Caesar's salads".
References
- "Caesar Cardinii, Creator of Salad, Dies at 60". Los Angeles Times. November 5, 1956.
Caesar Cardini, 60, credited with the invention of the side salad, died
{{cite news}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help); Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ "Rosa Cardini". Telegraph. September 21, 2003. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
Rosa Cardini, who has died in California aged 75, turned the salad dressing created by her father, Caesar, into a staple of modern dining and a million-dollar business. Although the origin of the Caesar Salad is a topic hotly debated by epicures, the generally accepted version is that it was first popularised in the United States in the late 1920s by an Italian immigrant, born Cesare Cardini. He and his brother Alessandro moved to San Diego from Milan after the Great War and then decided to open a restaurant just across the border in Tijuana, Mexico, to attract Americans frustrated by Prohibition.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - 1987 interview with Rosa Cardini, for Mailpac Magazine, LA.
- In "Hail Caesar", D. Grant quotes Aviator's salad and more (2007)
- 1998 notes on claims:
"Paul Maggiora, a partner of the Cardini's, claimed to have tossed the first Caesar's salad in 1927 for American airmen from San Diego and called it "Aviator's Salad. Caesar's brother Alex had claimed to have developed the salad (he too allegedly called it "aviator's salad"). Livio Santini claimed he made the salad from a recipe of his mother, in the kitchen of Caesar's restaurant when he was 18 years old, in 1925, and that Caesar took the recipe from him. - "Garden Room at the Town House" restaurant, Los Angeles, menu dated October 8, 1946: "Salads ... Caesar ... 1.50."
- above quoted D. Grant, → 'AVIATOR'S SALAD'
- "My father always used Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce, and anchovies are one of its ingredients. He meant this to be a subtle salad, and anchovies can be overwhelming." (Above quoted 1987 interview with Rosa Cardini)
- Review on Caesar Salad, by "The Grumpy Gourmet," Doral Chenoweth, quote:
"Today the nearest to Cardini's recipe is a commercial Caesar dressing prepared and marketed by the Marzetti Co." - Marzetti's(R) "Cardini's(R) Original Caesar dressing" is made with soy oil and anchovies, and gluten free, by now— Information on ingredients given by manufacturer
- Doral Chenoweth on this:
"In my reviewing career I have found alleged Caesar salads in this country prepared with . It was there that I decided to take up the cause."
"I walked from the border to Caesar's Bar & Grill, 5th and Main streets. The second floor ballroom was the salad restaurant. Two chefs were treating tourists to technique. They still use Cardini's preferred wooden bowls. My conversation with one of the chefs went like this:
- Q - Where does the Romaine come from?
A - Da states. - Q - Where does the grated Parmesan come from?
A - Da states. - Q - Where do you get the eggs?
A - From da chickens.
Those answers were satisfying. I recrossed the border vowing to defend Caesar Cardini."
- Q - Where does the Romaine come from?
- See "The original Caesar's salad" (JPG), as obtained by Doral Chenoweth
- The Rosa Cardini recipe does not call for this. As there hardly will be found an Italian salad recipe of that time without any vinegar at all, this might be just an omission.
- U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service Fact Sheet on Egg Products and Food Safety
Books
- Child, Julia. From Julia Child's Kitchen, 1975. ISBN 0-517-20712-5
- Greenfield, Terry D. In Search of Caesar - The Ultimate Caesar Salad Book, Tjicknor & Fields, 1983.
- Mariani, John F. The Dictionary of American Food & Drink, Ticknor & Fields, 1983.
- Stradley, Linda. What's Cooking America, Chehalem Publishing, 1997.
- Trager, James. The Food Chronology, Henry Holt and Company, 1995.
External links
- History of Salads
- Narrative and original recipe from From Julia Child's Kitchen
- Caesar Salad from BigOven.com
- Caesar Salad Video from Hotel Caesar in Tijuana, B.C., Mexico