Catch-22: An Antiquated Caesar Salad

Were I gambling man, I’d be willing to bet that would you were to peruse ten restaurant menus, you’d find seven that serve a Caesar salad.

Breaking those numbers down a bit further, it is pretty easy to say that of the seven salads, six would be made with some sort of industro-commercial gloop for dressing. Not to put too fine a point on it, I will wade further in and suggest that two of six gloopesque abominations will be spelled, in a veni, vidi, vici variation of “Caeser,” “Ceasar,” “Ceaser:” I came. I saw. I torn lettuce.

I believe that the insalata pictured here, above, is both made in-house and spelled correctly on the menu at Cambridge’s Elixir restaurant.

It ain't his insalata: modern-era bronze statue of Julius Caesar, Rimini, Italy, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Now, talk to a few restaurateurs and chefs, usually fine upstanding cooks or operators and they will tell you, I’d also bet, that the Caesar salad poses a bit of a conundrum, an oxymoron, a culinary Catch-22.

Most in fact would say that they are caught between hating the dated, tired old thing and not being able to remove it from the menu lest they piss off a loyal Caesar following who have come to expect that it will always be there like Hadrian’s Wall, though Julius would never have known that marvel of Anglo-Roman military fortification.

Even in its very name, the Caesar salad is a misleading and deceptive creature: it is certainly not Roman (nor is it even really Italian), and was concocted in 1924 out of necessity–when his larder was relatively bare–by Italo-American Cesare Cardini, a restaurateur who allegedly started tossing it in transit between San Diego, California, and sister-city to the south, Tijuana, where he worked. Incidentally, Cardini was also trying to avoid the abstemiousness of Prohibition (mother being the necessity, indeed).

Others involved with Mr. Cardini make their own claims to the salad as well. In addition to a questionable sire and paternity, we must also note the bastardization of the salad through a dropped apostrophe: the bowl of greens was originally “Caesar’s salad,” not for the pre-Christian Roman emperor but for this enterprising Tijuana chef who dreamed it up when his restaurant was in the weeds–and then marketed the hell out of it to make some serious green of another sort by selling it retail.

Some of Caesar's army. I like to coddle my eggs. And I do add anchovies, the saltier the better.

The “original” Caesar, according to “Grumpy Gourmet” Doral Chenoweth, was nothing more than Romaine, a jolt or two of Worcestershire, croutons, wine vinegar, salt, Parmesan, lemon juice, a raw egg, pepper, and–get this–”garlic flavoured salad oil,” whatever that is. The way it was originally presented on the plate? Well, with crisp Romaine leaves fully intact and whole so that it may be eaten with the fingers. Put it on the menu in that form, and take away the cutlery, and maybe it is suddenly less popular?

Please note also the absence of anchovies (my favourite thing about the salad) in the “Cardini original.” But more’s the Catch-22 pity because with or without the salty little fish, Cardini’s questionable creation can be a damn good salad even if it comes out of the kitchen dusted of its antiquity.