Caesar salad
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Caesar salad is a traditional salad often prepared tableside.[citation needed] It is sometimes termed the "king" of salads.[citation needed]
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[edit] History
Caesar salad was invented in 1924 by Caesar Cardini. Cardini was an Italian restaurateur and chef in Tijuana, Mexico. He was living in San Diego but working in Tijuana to avoid the restrictions of Prohibition. There are several stories about the specifics of the salad's creation. The most common is that it resulted from a Fourth of July rush depleting the kitchen's supplies, and Cardini made do with what he had, adding the dramatic flair of a table-side tossing. Another is that it was created for a group of Hollywood stars after a long weekend party. The Hotel Caesar in Tijuana Mexico no longer operates a restaurant, but the bar and grill adjacent to the newly renovated hotel recently resumed preparing table-side ensalada Caesar as per tradition (10 January, 2007).
[edit] Recipes
A Caesar salad is generally made from the following ingredients:
- romaine lettuce
- croutons
- lemon juice
- freshly crushed garlic
- mustard, powdered or prepared
- olive oil
- grated Parmesan cheese
- raw, coddled or hard-boiled egg yolks
- fresh-ground black pepper
- Worcestershire sauce
Contrary to popular belief, the original Caesar salad recipe did not contain anchovies; the slight anchovy flavor comes from Worcestershire sauce. Cardini was actually opposed to using anchovies in his salad. A few modern recipes now include anchovies as chopped fillets or in paste form.
In the book From Julia Child's Kitchen, Julia Child describes how she ate a Caesar's salad at Cardini's restaurant as a child in 1924, and many years later she sought out Cardini's daughter, Rosa Cardini, in order to discover the original recipe. Rosa Cardini's recipe differs from those that appear in the links below. In particular, the lettuce is served whole on the plate. It is meant to be lifted by the stem and eaten with the fingers. It calls for coddled eggs but no anchovies.
Some recipes include one or more of mustard, avocado, tomato, bacon bits, garlic cloves, or anchovies. Many restaurants offer a more substantial salad by topping a Caesar salad with grilled chicken, grilled salmon or shrimp. The salad today is served at many Italian and some Mexican restaurants, with certain Mexican restaurants improvising on occasional items such as substituting tortilla strips for croutons and Cotija cheese for the Parmesan.
The Cardini family licensed the original recipe early on, and bottled Cardini Caesar salad dressing is still available. Many other bottled versions are sold now, as well, including Morgan's and Newman's Own.
[edit] Raw egg and salmonella
Many people are concerned about the safety of Caesar salads due to the potential risk of infection by salmonella bacteria occasionally found in raw eggs. This is a concern with many similar dressings like mayonnaise, though in most cases, the pH level is thought to be acidic enough to kill the bacteria. Nevertheless, later versions of the recipe call for briefly-cooked coddled eggs or pasteurized eggs. Today, many recipes omit the egg and produce a Caesar vinaigrette. Yogurt can be substituted for the eggs to maintain a creamy texture.
[edit] Caesar salad humor
- Riffing on the popular idea that Caesar salad was invented by or for Julius Caesar, the Canadian comedy duo of Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster (both now deceased) did at least two versions of a sketch in which Caesar's chef (played by Shuster) prepares the ingredients of a modern Caesar salad, and says, "You shall name this salad, Caesar." After a moment of pondering, Caesar (played by Wayne) replies (in one version of the sketch), "I name it... coleslaw." Brutus offers his knife to the cook (or vice versa, in another version) when the cook disparages the new name.
- Another joke, an atrocious pun, is set up by bandits who invade Julius Caesar's birthday party seeking lettuce. Caesar shows them a truly beautiful salad. The bandit chief then replies, "We come to seize your salad, not to praise it!"
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- How to make a Caesar Salad - Video shot at the Original Caesar's Hotel in Tijuana, B.C., Mexico.
- Cardini's Dressings official site
- Salad (Caesar) - A classic recipe, also notable in making use of the phrase ". . . à la Pete Townshend (without all the booze and deafness, of course)."
- Alton Brown's version - Alton Brown (of the cooking show Good Eats) provides this recipe that attempts to be true to the original. He also has a different recipe for the dressing with tofu replacing the coddled eggs here
- Ensalada César at the Baja California tourism site (in Spanish).
- History of Salads.
