Name Plates: Caesar Salad

Today we are celebrating the Ides of March with, what else but, a Caesar Salad.  The 15th of March may not have been a good day for old Julius C but, any day in my book is a good day to eat this classic American salad!

The Waldorf Salad may be the funniest American salad but the Caesar salad has to the most highly accoladed:

• In the 1940’s Gourmet Magazine called it  ‘the gastronomic highlight of the current moment’
• In 1953 it was hailed as ‘the greatest recipe to originate in the Americas in 50 years’ by the International Society of Epicures.
• Julia Childs called it “a sensation of a salad from coast to coast”

High praise for some dressed lettuce leaves!!!

What is Caesar Salad?

I feel like this is a little bit like trying to explain what is water. Caesar Salad is everywhere.  And everyone “knows” what it is.  And everyone has their own recipe.  But let’s try to break it down a little bit….

Caesar Salad was created in 1924 by Caesar Cardini in his restaurant in Tijuana Mexico.  The OG version was romaine (cos) lettuce leaves dressed in a mixture of garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, egg yolk, Worchestershire sauce, anchovies and parmesan cheese, topped with a lone crostini, black pepper and more parmesan cheese.

• No bacon
• No poached eggs
• No multiple croutons

I love this more austere version of what we have come to see as a “typical” Caesar Salad.

Although I am not averse to any of the above and, indeed I usually include all of them when I make a “Caesar Salad” my purist heart balks at adding

• Chicken
• Kale
• Prawns
• Avocado, or
• Lobster

I love all of those things.  And they all have their place. But that place is not in my Caesar Salad.  And I will silently judge you if you choose to give them a place in yours.

But I will not be so quiet if you give me, or choose for yourself,  a so-called Caesar salad that contains pasta, pesto, quinoa, is served in wonton cups or comes atop of pizza.  Because, those things maybe something.  But what they are not is the ingredients of a goddamn Caesar Salad!!!

You will need to beware the Ides O’ March if any of those ends up in my Caesar!

By the way, the Cardini restaurant still exists and if you so desire you can drop by and have one of the ensaladeros make you a Caesar salad at your table just like they did back in the day!

Which has made that restaurant in Tijuana top five in my bucket list of places to eat.

If this damn virus ever abates and we can all travel again.

I Digress

Skip over this bit if you are only interested in Caesar Salad

Can we just stop and talk about Covid-19 for a mo?

We haven’t formally been told that we have to, but my work is encouraging everyone to work from home.  There was a really weird atmosphere on Friday as everyone was packing up their stuff before heading home.  It was like it was Christmas in that we felt like it might be a while before we saw each other again.  But like Christmas with all the joy sucked out of it.

They’ve cancelled the Grand Prix which was meant to be in Melbourne this weekend and the Comedy Festival.  They cancelled the Robbie Williams concert on Saturday but not the New Order concert I went to on the same night.  By the way, the icing on the cake for that show was, as the house lights came up at the end of the gig, the song ushering us all out of the venue was REM’s It’s The End of The World As We Know It.

You can’t buy hand sanitizer, toilet paper or tissues for love or money.  The supermarket shelves are largely empty of all non-perishable items.

Because I will be working from home for the indefinite future I went online tonight to buy a monitor that I can plug my work laptop into so that whilst keeping myself safe from the coronavirus I am not giving myself massive eyestrain.   At one point I was trying to log on to our biggest office supplies company on two different laptops and my phone and it took FOREVER to finally make my purchase.  I’m sensing monitors may join toilet paper and Graham Gene Potter on Australia’s most-wanted list!

What is happening in all your countries in reaction to the virus?  Are you scared?  Worried?  Bored?

I am about 1% worried for my personal safety.  I am mildly asthmatic so I am already slightly compromised on a respiratory front  I am more scared for my mother who is obvs older and massively asthmatic.

I am also really annoyed that people have responded to this in the way they have in relation to panic buying.

I have been listening to the wonderful podcast American Hysteria recently and so much of what I am seeing resonates with what I have heard on there.  Can we please all just calm the farm down in this?

And just to lighten the tone?  Mystery solved!

Who, Who Was Caesar?

Caesar Cardini was an Italian immigrant to the United States who, along with his brother Alex, opened restaurants in San Diego and Tijuana.  If you recall, the United States was under Prohibition from 1920 through to 1933.  Mexico was not.  So many of the rich and famous, including many Hollywood stars, would cross the border to eat and, more particularly,  drink. Caesar’s became a popular hangout for these people.

Legend has it, that the restaurant was particularly busy one Fourth of July weekend.   Kitchen supplies were running out so Caesar had to make a salad from what was on hand…ecco! Caesar Salad was born.

Then, as now, the Caesar salad was made tableside for a little bit of dramatic flair.

Caesar Cardini died in 1956, but as they say, the candle burned out long before the legend ever did!

The Recipe

I used this recipe from Taste for my Caesar and I can heartily recommend it.

For a more austere version, probably close to the OG version, I can also recommend Grace Kelly’s Caesar Salad as featured in Silver Screen Suppers as featured in Recipes For Rebels by all-round internet good guy Greg Swenson.

Variations

There are probably a million recipes for Caesar salad on the internet.  TBH, a lot of them, as mentioned in the intro above are not “Caesar” Salads.

Choose wisely!

Modern Day Caesar

There are not that many modern-day Caesar’s.

There’s the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan and of course, the original Joker, Cesar Romano.  But, today of all days, there can only be one Caesar for us to celebrate!

Happy Ides of March everyone!