It was born 100 years ago in Tijuana, Mexico, to an Italian immigrant who is said to have invented the dish on July 4, 1924, at his restaurant, Caesar's Place, in the Hotel Caesar. It’s crunchy, creamy, and cheesy, with a touch of saltiness. You can enjoy it as an entree or as the start to a lovely meal.
Caesar salad is on the menu.
You’ve had a few of them, haven’t you? It’s the anti-salad – not a bunch of vegetables, just plenty of romaine lettuce with nutty cheese and crunchy croutons. More about croutons later.
Caesar Cardini was one of the Cardini brothers who emigrated from a small town in the Piedmont region of Italy. The brothers left home for better paying work in the hospitality business. Caesar waited tables in hotels in Montreal and California, but when Prohibition turned Tijuana into a boomtown, Caesar and his brother Alex went south to join the restaurant business that catered to wealthy Americans who had crossed the border to escape Prohibition. During dinner service one night in the dining room, Cardini created the salad.
In a 1987 interview with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, his daughter Rosa said her father was very precise in preparing his creation and was not inclined to vary his recipe. He started with garlic-flavored oil, lemons, dashes of Worcestershire sauce, (customarily called “salsa inglesa” or “English sauce” in Mexico) and Dijon mustard. He boiled the eggs for one minute before adding them, and then parmesan cheese. He used only the tender, inner leaves of Romaine lettuce, coating them in the dressing, leaving them whole, intending diners to pick them up with their fingers. And he didn’t use anchovies. Or croutons.
The “ensalada Caesar” was born and it was more than a salad - it was an experience. It was originally served tableside, giving it an air of spectacle and sophistication, with a large wooden bowl and two wooden mixing pallets. According to an original menu on display at Caesar’s restaurant from 1930, the salad cost 50 cents.
As with any delicious invasive species, it became ubiquitous: it appeared on restaurant menus and in home kitchens where chefs and home cooks evolved the Caesar salad. That must be how we got anchovies and croutons on it.
You can enjoy a Caesar as the simple masterpiece it was meant to be. But more than any other salad, the Caesar invites you to add protein – salmon, shrimp, sirloin, buffalo chicken, or yes, a fried egg. I recently had it grilled and rolled in crushed croutons and parmesan, with the dressing on the side for dipping. Apparently, you can “Caesar” just about anything with the proper ratio of anchovy, garlic, parmesan and lemon juice: you know, a burrito or a chicken wrap.
Business in Tijuana declined after Prohibition ended, so Caesar moved his family to Los Angeles in 1935. They bottled their Caesar dressing at home before eventually founding Caesar Cardini Foods Inc., which was acquired by T. Marzetti in 1996, which still sells Caesar Cardini brand dressings.
In 2010, Javier Plascencia took over the restaurant and reignited the tableside preparation ritual for the Caesar salad, rekindling a local love for it. And they sell about 2,500 salads a month, all tableside.
Though you may buy the bagged Caesar salad kit that was introduced by Dole foods in 1993, enjoy a homemade or restaurant one to celebrate 100 years of what, in the 1950s, The Society of Epicures in Paris voted “the greatest recipe to originate from the America’s in 50 years.”
Hail to Caesar!
