Caesar salad was born 100 years ago, on July 4, 1924, in Tijuana, Mexico. Above, Grilled Romaine Salad Caesar on Boucherie, a restaurant in the city of New Orleans.
Randy Schmidt/Boucherie
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Randy Schmidt/Boucherie
On the occasion of its 100th anniversary, you can find countless versions of the Caesar salad being consumed throughout the United States. They’re prepared tableside at fine dining restaurants, at the counters of fast-casual salad chains, and served at McDonald’s with chicken patties and cherry tomatoes.
Chef Nathanial Zimet insists on using bokerones in roasted Caesar salads at his Boucherie restaurant in New Orleans. Marinated Spanish white anchovies, he says, are far superior to salt-cured ones. Romaine spears, he adds, are immune to flame drying.
“It’s almost like it’s locked in its crack,” he says, as the vivid green leaves twist and darken during a quick fry. He arranges the lettuce on a plate, drizzles it with dressing (lemon, garlic, Worcestershire and Tabasco) and then generously scatters thick basil croutons and shredded parmesan shavings on top.
“Is it cold? No. Is it hot? No. Is it cooked? No. Is it burnt? Absolutely.”
Not many classic dishes can claim a specific birthday. But the Caesar salad was first created on July 4, 1924, in Tijuana, Mexico.
It’s not a Mexican salad, says Jeffrey Pilcher. He is a culinary historian who studies the ways of Mexican food.
“This is an Italian salad,” says Pilcher. “Cesar Cardini, the inventor of the salad, was an Italian immigrant and there were many Italian immigrants in Mexico.”
Tijuana, built into a bustling border town by a mix of people including Mexicans, Chinese and North Americans, had no distinctive indigenous cuisine in 1924, Pilcher says. During Prohibition, tourists flocked to its baths, bullfights and nightclubs, where they could enjoy perfectly legal cocktails.
Cardini’s original restaurant, on Avenida Revolución in downtown Tijuana, is still open for business. The original Caesar salad remains on the menu. As the story goes, the restaurant was overwhelmed with holiday parties on that fateful 4th of July. They gobbled up everything but a few pantry staples: olive oil, Parmesan, eggs, Worcestershire sauce and lettuce. Someone, perhaps Cardini or perhaps his brother, scraped the foods together in a large wooden bowl. The Caesar salad was a hit.
A vegan Caesar salad.
JM Hirsch/AP
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JM Hirsch/AP
Over the years, the dish has evolved from what is now called the “classic Caesar salad” (recipe here from our friends at PBS Food) to what writer Ellen Cushing has derided as “runaway Caesar salad trickery” to a very funny recent article on. The Atlantic.
“In October,” she writes, “the food magazine Delicious posted a list of “Caesar” recipes that included variations with bacon, maple syrup and celery; asparagus, fava beans, smoked trout and fennel; and tandoori shrimp, prosciutto, kale and mung bean sprouts. The so-called Caesar at Kitchen Mouse Cafe, in Los Angeles, includes “pickled carrots, radish and coriander seeds, garlic croutons, crispy oyster mushrooms, lemon dressing.”
But Nathanial Zimet believes that Caesar’s salad lasts precisely because of these freedoms, not in spite of them. Chef Boucherie believes that salad can be a showcase for innovation while remaining rooted in culinary ingenuity and creativity. It is, he says, a salad for today. Maybe even forever.
Edited for radio and web by Jennifer Vanasco.