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Why
does a Caesar salad
go by that name?
Caesar
Cardini
The
salad consists of greens (classically romaine lettuce) with a garlic vinaigrette
dressing.
The Caesar salad was once voted by the International Society of
Epicures in Paris
as the "greatest recipe to originate from the Americas
in fifty years." Caesar
salad honors restaurateur Caesar Cardini (1896-1956) shown above, who invented
it in Tijuana, Mexico in 1924 on the Fourth of July weekend. It is said that on
this busy
weekend, Cardini was running low on food and he put together a salad
for his guests
from what was left over in the kitchen. Caesar experimented
and that evening the Caesar's
Salad was born. "Take everything to the
table" he said, "and make a ceremony of fixing
the salad".
His original recipe included romaine, garlic, croutons, and Parmesan cheese,
boiled eggs, olive oil and Worcestershire sauce. The original salad was prepared
at
tableside. When the salad dressing was ready, the romaine leaves were coated
with
the dressing and placed stem side out, in a circle and served on a flat
dinner plate,
so that the salad could be eaten with the fingers. Caesar
was born near Lago Maggiore, Italy, in 1896; he and his brother Alex emigrated
to
the U.S. after World War I. In 1926, Alex Cardini joined his brother, Caesar,
at the Tijuana
restaurant. Alex, an ace pilot in the Italian Air Force during
World War I, added other
ingredients, one of which was anchovies, and named
the salad Aviator's Salad" in honor
of the pilots from Rockwell Field
Air Base in San Diego. It is reported that Alex's version
became very popular,
and later this salad was renamed "Caesar Salad." Over
the years, it became quite the thing to do — to drive to Tijuana for a Caesar
Salad.
Famous movie stars like Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, and W. C. fields
came and gossip
columnists wrote about it in the newspapers. Julia Child was
a youngster when her
parents drove there in 1925 or 1926 to see what all the
fuss was about, and in her
book, "From Julia Child's Kitchen," she
wrote about the tableside performance.
Julia
Child's Recipe: Created after Consultation with Rosa Cardini, Caesar's Daughter.
Mrs.
Wallis Warfield Simpson (wife of Prince Edward VIII of Wales, former King
of England) often visited and partied in the San Diego and Tijuana areas in the
1920s.
During this time, she visited Hotel Caesar's Place and became fond
of Caesar's Salad.
The salad was introduced to many of the great European
restaurants by her instructing
international chefs how to make it. Legend
also says that because she preferred not
to eat food with her fingers, she
was the first to cut the lettuce leaves into delicate
bite-sized pieces with
a knife and fork rather than indulging in the finger food. In
1948 Caesar Cardini established a patent on the dressing (which is still
packaged
and sold as "Cardini's Original Caesar dressing mix,"
distributed
by Caesar Cardini Foods, Culver City, California.
.
From
... What'sCookingAmerica.net
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