Who invented the Caesar salad?
It is usually credited to Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who ran a restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico, in 1924. Others say his brother Alex or one of his chefs made it first.
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The wrong Caesar
Start by forgetting Rome. The salad has nothing to do with Julius Caesar. It is named after Caesar Cardini, born Cesare in Italy in 1896, near Lake Maggiore. He moved to North America in the 1910s and ran restaurants in California, including one in San Diego. Then the United States brought in Prohibition in 1920, and selling drinks became illegal. Cardini did what plenty of people in the restaurant trade did. He went south, across the border to Tijuana, Mexico, where serving alcohol was legal.
Tijuana in the Prohibition years
Tijuana boomed in those years. Americans crossed the border to drink and gamble, and the Christian Science Monitor writes that the Hotel Caesar, home to Cardini's restaurant, had a bar 550 feet long and drew guests like Al Capone and Clark Gable. Californians came down for the weekend. That crowd mattered, because the Monitor says it was in Hollywood that the salad became a legend. Some accounts call his restaurant Caesar's Place, others tie it to the Hotel Caesar. Either way, it was busy.
The busy Fourth of July
The usual story, which Britannica tells, is that on a busy holiday weekend in 1924 Cardini ran short of the usual ingredients. Later accounts put it on the Fourth of July. He made a salad from what was left: romaine lettuce, Parmesan, lemon, bread cubes, olive oil, eggs and Worcestershire sauce, tossed at the table in front of the guests. That show at the table is a big part of why people remembered it. Britannica says that by the 1940s it was a fixture of good restaurants around the world.
Who really made it
Not everyone agrees it was Caesar. Some give the credit to Livio Santini, a young Italian chef who worked for him. Others say his brother Alex Cardini made a version with lime and anchovy paste, served to airmen from a San Diego base and called the Aviator's Salad. In 2002 a manager at the Tijuana restaurant told the Christian Science Monitor that Alex invented it, and even that the real inventor was Cardini's aunt, who worked in the kitchen. The stories do not line up, and nobody can settle it now.
From Tijuana to every menu
Cardini moved to Los Angeles in 1935 and trademarked his dressing, and in 1986 his daughter Rosa published what she said was his original recipe. The salad got a second wave in the 1960s and 1970s, when restaurants made it at the table again. Today FOX 7 reports that about a third of American restaurants serve it. A typical Caesar is a big bowl of romaine with dressing, croutons and Parmesan, often with anchovies added, and it still has nothing to do with Rome.