Caesar salad

History

The salad's creation is generally attributed to restaurateur Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who operated restaurants in Mexico and the United States. Cardini was living in San Diego but he was also working in Tijuana where he avoided the restrictions of Prohibition. His daughter Rosa recounted that her father invented the salad at his restaurant Caesar's (at the Hotel Caesar) 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 the table-side tossing "by the chef." A number of Cardini's staff have said that they invented the dish.

Julia Child said that she had eaten a Caesar salad at Cardini's restaurant when she was a child in the 1920s. In 1946, newspaper columnist Dorothy Kilgallen wrote of a Caesar containing anchovies, differing from Cardini's version:

The big food rage in Hollywood—the Caesar salad—will be introduced to New Yorkers by Gilmore's Steak House. It's an intricate concoction that takes ages to prepare and contains (zowie!) lots of garlic, raw or slightly coddled eggs, croutons, romaine, anchovies, parmeasan cheese, olive oil, vinegar and plenty of black pepper.

According to Rosa Cardini, the original Caesar salad (unlike his brother Alex's Aviator's salad, which was later renamed to Caesar 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 1970s, Cardini's daughter said that the original recipe included whole lettuce leaves, which were meant to be lifted by the stem and eaten with the fingers; coddled eggs; and Italian olive oil.

Although the original recipe does not contain anchovies, modern recipes typically include anchovies as a key ingredient, which frequently is emulsified in bottled versions. Bottled Caesar dressings are now produced and marketed by many companies.

The trademark brands "Cardini's", "Caesar Cardini's" and "The Original Caesar Dressing" are all claimed to date to February 1950, although they were only registered decades later, and more than a dozen varieties of bottled Cardini's dressing are available today, with various ingredients.

Common ingredients

Common ingredients in many recipes:

• romaine or cos lettuce
• olive oil
• crushed garlic
• salt
• Dijon mustard
• black pepper
• lemon juice
• Worcestershire sauce
• anchovies
• raw or coddled eggs
• grated Parmesan cheese
• croutons

Variations include varying the leaf, adding meat such as grilled chicken or bacon, or omitting ingredients such as anchovies and eggs.

Health concerns

There is inherent risk of infection by salmonella bacteria occasionally found in raw egg from cracked or improperly washed eggshells. However, some countries such as the UK have eliminated this risk through vaccination and tracking strategies. Nevertheless, later versions of the recipe call at least for briefly cooked coddled eggs or pasteurized eggs. Recipes may omit the egg and produce a "Caesar vinaigrette". Many variations of this salad exist; yogurt is sometimes substituted for the eggs to maintain a creamy texture and others call for using mayonnaise.