Caesar Salad - Recipes, History, Trivia

Caesar Salad - History of the Dish

If you're dining out, it's probably on the menu. Aficionados can recite from memory the history of its creation. One of the most positive things to result from the abomination of Prohibition, perhaps no other classic dish is as nearly ubiquitous as the Caesar Salad. During those dry days, thirsty Americans headed down to Tijuana, Mexico, where restaurateur Caesar Cardini is generally credited with inventing the salad from ingredients he had on hand on a busy Fourth of July, 1924. Cardini also reportedly initiated the tradition of flamboyant tableside preparation, still practiced in some restaurants to this day.

The basics are simple: romaine lettuce, olive oil, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, worcestershire sauce (or, anchovies, or anchovy paste), parmesan or romano cheese, a raw or coddled egg, salt, pepper, and croutons. The variations are myriad.

List of Some Restaurants That Still do a Tableside Caesar Salad

BOA Steakhouse - West Hollywood, CA and Santa Monica, California

Golden Steer Steak House - Las Vegas

El Gaucho - Pacific Northwest : Bellevue, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Seattle, WA; Tacoma, WA

Aretsky's Patroon Restaurant - New York City

Nick & Stef's Steakhouse - Downtown Los Angeles

Recipes

Caesar Salad
Printable version of recipe
Here's a fairly standard take on the classic.
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1 head romaine lettuce, torn into pieces (Some purists call for only the inner leaves, and that they be left whole)
2-3 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2-3 dashes of worcestershire sauce
salt & pepper, to taste
1 egg, coddled (boiled for 1 minute)
1/2 cup grated parmesan or romano
croutons

Prepare, and set aside the lettuce. Mash the garlic onto the sides of a wooden bowl. Add the Olive oil, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Mix well. Add the lettuce leaves, and toss to coat. Coddle the egg, and break over the salad, scraping out the shell with a teaspoon. Toss well to mix in the egg. Add the parmesan or romano, and toss again. Top with the croutons and serve.

California I adore you
Giving me this precious dish
I can taste and feel your sunshine
Nothing better one could wish.

Sense the breeze from the Pacific
Hear your waves from every shore
With closed eyes I see your magic
Things I never dreamt before.

Caesar...Caesar...
Gonna gonna make it good
Gonna gonna make it right
Gonna gonna make it so
My love will love me more tonight.

--From The Caesar Salad Song by Nicola Paone, quoted in the New York Cookbook, by Molly O'Neill

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