The Caesar salad turns 100

There are many reasons to celebrate today: Independence Day in the US, EYB reaching 500,000 online recipes, and it’s the birthday of the Caesar salad. It’s not often that the exact origins of a dish are known, but this one is known down to the exact day. You would be forgiven if you thought the salad originated in Italy, but it was invented on July 4, 1924 in Tijuana, Mexico. NPR discusses the history of the Caesar salad in a story celebrating the salad’s 100th birthday.

While the dish was not created in Italy, it was created by an Italian: Caesar Cardini, the inventor of the salad, was an Italian immigrant, originally emigrating to California but moving to Tijuana to avoid Prohibition. He started a restaurant in the city and on that fateful July 4, the restaurant was inundated with patrons and running out of food. Either Cardini or his brother threw together the few items they still had on hand – lettuce, Parmesan, egg, and olive oil – and created something that has endured for a century.

While many Caesar salads today contain anchovies, it doesn’t appear that they were part of the original concoction. Worcestershire sauce, however, was included at the outset. There are conflicting stories as to whether the egg in the original was raw or coddled, but either way, it contributed to the magical combination of ingredients. Chefs have put inventive spins on the salad in the past century, such as using kale, adding chicken, or grilling the lettuce. Here’s to many more birthdays for the Caesar salad!