The History of Caesar Salad

The popularity of ths salad around the world is most likely due to a man that bears the salad's name, Caesar Cardini, NOT Julius Caesar as many people believe.

Who invented the Caesar Salad?

There are two different ideas on who invented the Caesar Salad. The first one for my dollar seems the most likely.

Caesar Cardini (1896- 1956)

Caesar (Cesare) Cardini Caesar was born near Lago Maggiore, Italy, in 1896; he and his brother Alex emigrated to the U.S. after World War I. The Cardini's lived in San Diego but operated a restaurant in Tijuana to circumvent Prohibition.

Where was it Invented? Caesar's hotel located on the Avenida Revolución in Tijuana. This is not the exact place but near it.

According to Caesar's daughter Rosa, on July 4th 1924 the salad was created on a busy weekend at Caesar's Restaurant. It is said that Caesar was short of supplies and didn't want to disappoint the customers so he concocted this salad with what was on hand. To add a flair to this he prepared it at the table. This story is not certifiable however but it very well could have happened. I can vouch for the fact that this happens frequently in the restaurant business. The salad soon became a hit and people came to the restaurant just to get the salad. In particular the Hollywood set loved Caesars

In 1948 Caesar started to bottle the Caesar dressing.

Some of Caesar's friends and family dispute this claim.

Paul Maggiora, a partner of the Cardini's, claimed to have tossed the first Caesar's salad in 1927 for American airmen from San Diego and called it "Aviator's Salad. Caesar's brother Alex had claimed to have developed the salad (he too allegedly called it "aviator's salad"). Livio Santini claimed he made the salad from a recipe of his mother, in the kitchen of Caesar's restaurant when he was 18 years old, in 1925, and that Caesar took the recipe from him.

 

Interesting Facts about Caesar Salad

Julia Child dined there as a child, and had Caesar salad made by Caesar himself. Later on she contacted Rosa Cardini, his daughter to get the original recipe.

What was the original recipe for Caesar Salad

A video of how to make Caesar Salad
Next to Hotel Caesar in Tijuana

The Other person that claims to have invented Caesar Salad

This is reprinted from an article by
Jim Rader , Merriam-Webster Inc.
American Food Folklore and Culinary History:

A totally heterodox origin for "Caesar salad" appears in the 3rd edition of "Webster's New World": "so named in honor of (Gaius) Julius Caesar by Giacomo Junia, Italian-American chef in Chicago, who invented it c. 1903." Journalists only bring this etymology up to heap scorn on it (demonstrating by the way their complete incomprehension of the meaning of "Webster" in dictionary titles.) Is anybody out there in Cleveland on ADS-L? Where did this etymology come from?

The documentation of the collocation "Caesar salad"/"Caesar's salad" is thin. The first cite Merriam has is from the "Britannica Book of the Year, 1950", from the article "Fads of 1949": "In foods, fads were limited. Caesar salad was in vogue through the summer and fall, and slot-machine hot dogs still prevailed in the larger cities" (pp. 273-74). There have to be earlier cites out there, even if only from 1949, when the salad was supposedly popular (suggesting it had been regional until then?).