Caesar Salad, a worldwide restaurant menu classic, is celebrating its 100th birthday.
Italian immigrant Caesar Cardini is said to have invented the dish on July 4, 1924, in his restaurant Caesar’s Place in Tijuana, Mexico.
It was a muggy night and Cardini was struggling to accommodate the influx of Californians who had crossed the border to escape Prohibition.
In the center of the dining room, Cardini mixed whole romaine leaves with whatever ingredients he had on hand, including garlic oil, Worcestershire sauce, lemons, eggs and Parmesan cheese.
A star was born.
Tijuana plans to mark the anniversary this month with a three-day food and wine festival and the unveiling of a Cardini statue.
Caesar’s – a fancy restaurant that Cardini opened in Tijuana a few years after the salad was invented – says it still makes up to 300 Caesar salads a day.
In contrast to other menu items from the early 20th century – such as creamed liver cheese or aspic – the Caesar salad remains a perennial favorite.
According to restaurant consulting firm Technomic, about 35 percent of U.S. restaurants have Caesar salad on their menu.
And according to Nielsen IQ, nearly 43 million bottles of Caesar salad dressing – worth $150 million ($224 million Australian) – were sold in the United States last year.
Beth Forrest, a professor of humanities and applied food science at the Culinary Institute of America, said it took several years for the Caesar salad to become mainstream.
Forrest said Caesar salad is ideal for the Western palate because it has our two favorite textures: crunchy and creamy.
Egg yolks and Parmesan cheese are also high in glutamate acid, which gives salad the rich, salty flavor known as “umami.”
“It satisfies us in many hedonistic ways while still allowing us to feel virtuous. It is a salad, after all,” Forrest said.
The many variations of Caesar have also given it its popularity, experts say.
Cooks can add chicken, bacon or salmon, mix in kale or Brussels sprouts, and make the dressing from miso paste or tofu.
At Beatrix, a chain of five Chicago restaurants that make healthier versions of comfort food, chef and partner Andrew Ashmore spreads a spoonful of yogurt dressing on the bottom of the salad bowl and tosses it with capers, parsley, lemon vinaigrette and champagne vinegar before adding baby lettuce, baby arugula, breadcrumbs and a generous helping of Grada Padano cheese.
“It’s our best-selling salad and has been since we opened 11 years ago,” Ashmore said.
“I couldn’t try to take it off the menu even if I wanted to.”