Consider: Caesar Salad
Not what you think of when you hear Mexican food.
When did tableside food prep stop being “a thing”? The list of tableside delights is heavy on the classics: Cherries Jubilee, Crêpes Suzette, saganaki, Peking duck, maybe a salt-crusted whole fish and of course, the classic Caesar Salad. I think Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville might do a tableside guacamole, which I thought was basically the Mexican Caesar, but it turns out that the Caesar is the Mexican Caesar…
A staple at all different kinds of restaurants, from steakhouses to red-sauce joints, you can more likely find a Caesar on the menu than not. The best versions combine tableside theatrics with high quality, yet simple ingredients.
Its history and evolution is a product of some of the major forces that shaped American culture from the 20’s to the 50’s. Its relevance continues, from the chicken Caesar to the Buffalo chicken Caesar wrap to conversations about authenticity, selling out, and cultural appropriation. Grab a wooden bowl, a breath mint for after, and let's toss this salad.
Design
The Caesar is as hard to mess up as it is to spell. It is not named after the roman leader or Caesar Chavez. It is named after an Italian immigrant to North America, Caesar Cardini. Born in Italy as one of seven children, three of his brothers preceded him to America in the restaurant business before he followed in the early 20th century.
He found his way to San Diego by way of New York, Montreal, and Sacramento where he started to earn a name for himself (the Keith McNally of his day). In 1920, with the arrival of prohibition, he began opening restaurants in Tijuana, Mexico.
As various forms of entertainment would be banned in the US (bull fights, bare knuckle boxing, etc.), many entrepreneurs would move south of the border and open up shop in Tijuana. Prohibition helped accelerate that trend. Less than an hour from San Diego, it became a popular vacation destination for movie stars and moguls who wanted to gamble and carouse without getting on a plane.
It was in this hotbed of nightlife (nicknamed Satan's Playground by preachers who did not want people going there, which probably backfired), Caesar opened a restaurant down an alleyway from the main drag.
On July 4th, 1924 history was made. The restaurant was so slammed that the kitchen ran out of ingredients. Caesar took what he could find and whipped together the first of a salad that would become legendary. Composed of lettuce, parmesan cheese, lime juice, croutons, garlic, Worcestershire sauce and eggs, he decided to toss it together tableside to make it seem grander than its humble ingredients. It was originally intended to be eaten with your fingers.
The salad took off in popularity, allowing Caesar to move his restaurant off the alley and onto the main drag, Avenue de la Revolucion. Even the GOAT Julia Child wrote about her experience with the salad in her book From Julia Child’s Kitchen:
“Caesar himself rolled the big cart up to the table, tossed the romaine in a great wooden bowl and I wish I could say I remembered his every move, but I don't... It was a sensation of a salad from coast to coast, and there were even rumblings of its success in Europe.”
Innovation:
Food heritage and authenticity is a frequent source of debate. As a frequent topic in fellow ‘sletter, Vittles, food is wrapped up in ideas of culture and identity. The Caesar salad has changed and evolved over the years, such that the current popular conception is not the “authentic” version. I was unable to find a recipe with lime. Even Caesar Cardini’s Caesar dressing contains lemon juice and ingredients like mustard seed and white wine vinegar. The closest thing the modern world has to a Caesar Salad influencer is cookbook author Molly Baz. Her recipe for the salad contains mustard and anchovies.
There is a permanent tension between seeking out the most “authentic” version of a food, and continuing to evolve and improve classics from eras past. It also begs the question: who has the right to interpret classic recipes (and who to credit)? A restaurant in Toronto once went viral for refusing to serve cutlery with its rendition of the Caesar salad, which makes their version the closest to how it was originally intended to be served.
Also, this article wouldn’t be complete without touching on the tableside element of it all. I found this loving reminiscence of the tableside Casear in the Kansas City Star written by the amazingly named Jasper J. Mirabile Jr.:
“At Jasper’s, a large cart would appear at your table and the largest wooden bowl my father could find would be filled with garlic and anchovies along with some salt to make the perfect base for the salad.
Worcestershire sauce, red wine vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil along with 10 turns of cracked pepper per person would then be added and mixed thoroughly.
And just at the right time, a server would appear at the table with a bowl of chilled and torn romaine lettuce. A two minute coddled egg would be cracked into the bowl and tossed with the torn romaine leaves. Why? Because my father said it was his way of coating the lettuce just enough so that the dressing would adhere to the leaves.
Croutons and grated cheese would be added, a final tossing would occur and the completed salad would be placed on a chilled plate and served with a chilled fork. Oh what a wonderful memory”
...And on the other end of the experience spectrum is the Buffalo Chicken Caesar Wrap. A mixture of fried chicken strips, buffalo sauce (franks red hot and butter) and a Casesar salad, it can be found on chain restaurant menus the world over.
Cost
The Caesar at Cardini’s will run you about $7 in Tijuana. The famous Dan Tana’s in LA (“Been here 50 years and still a line!”) serves theirs for $22. Of course, you can make it at home for much less (or much more depending on if you use fancy bacon, anchovies and cheese). If you need, here is a cherry wood bowl on a stand for your at-home tableside preparations.
Either way, once it is safe to do so, we recommend going out to an old school restaurant that probably has more than one tableside option on the menu, and enjoy dinner and show!
PS
There are some sources that cite Caesar’s brother as the actual creator. He wanted to make a quick snack for a couple of pilots and whipped together The Aviator Salad, which grew so popular that Caesar stole the idea and renamed it after himself. To me, the most famous aviators in the world are Goose and Maverick. In their honour, check out the trailer for what will be the greatest cinematic event of the decade: Top Gun: Maverick.