Caesar salad.
A quick-thinking restaurateur rustles up a dish and a classic is born.
The time is Prohibition, the place is Tijuana. Thirsty citizens of the United States are crossing the border in search of legal drinking options. One busy weekend at Caesar’s Place, the revellers have revelled so hard there’s almost nothing left in the larder. Quick-thinking Italian restaurateur Caesar Cardini throws together a salad with the few things lying about in the kitchen and a legend is born. It’s carried back across the border by the Hollywood crowd, and goes on to be tossed tableside around the world. Over its travels and across the years it has been corrupted with grilled chicken, subjected to deconstruction and otherwise mucked around, yet made simply and with good ingredients its brilliance shines on nearly a century later.
“How could a mere salad cause such emotion?” – Julia Child