“The much-loved caesar salad,” the travel website Culture Trip explained in 2018, “is on every
grocery store shelf. It's served in thousands of restaurants, and its sauce is sold by the
bucket load across the globe.” A rare example of a food fad that has maintained its popularity, the
history of the caesar salad is as rich as well, a coddled egg. Involving multiple nations, a bevy of
famous movie stars, an infamous American divorce, a disputed origin story and of course prominently
alcohol. And maybe a surprise to many, it has absolutely nothing to do with the infamous
roman dictator. The history of the caesar salad deserves to be remembered.
The website Serious Eats describes the salad that it says has become the default second
salad option at every single major restaurant chain in the country. We all know what it is,
chopped romaine lettuce and garlicky croutons tossed in a creamy dressing made with eggs,
olive oil, lemon, parmesan, worcestershire sauce and anchovies. Even when mass produced,
the combination of savory, creamy, tangy and crunchy ingredients is tasty stuff. Caesar salad
is considered to be a signature American dish, and its history is, you might say, as American
as apple pie. It is a product, so the story goes, of the American celebration of its birthday.
But more directly, caesar salad is the product of the 18th amendment
to the United States Constitution. One of the many unintended consequences of the
United States prohibition of alcohol was the growth of cities along the border with Mexico,
particularly Tijuana. A 2020 edition of the San Diego Union Tribune explains,
“In 1920, Mexico was coming out of a decade of revolutionary turmoil and seeking revenue to
fund urban development for state formation in sparsely populated northern borderlands. Baja
California's territorial governor Abelardo Rodriguez offered business concessions
to American vice entrepreneurs displaced by federal alcohol and state gambling prohibitions
to operate saloons, race tracks and casinos south of the line. The website Historical Mexico writes,
“Americans crossed the border to escape prohibition and confining social expectations.
The acts outlawed by moralists in the US, including the 18th amendment's prohibition,
or local ordinance against dancing and impropriety did not end, they just relocated. And for Southern
Californians, the party simply moved into mexico.” In Tijuana an industry sprang up
to meet this need. The resulting American business turned Tijuana into a boomtown with its population
growing tenfold from 1200 in 1920, to 12,000 by the time prohibition was repealed in 1933.
And that would eventually draw the attention of an Italian-American restaurateur named
Caesar Cardini. Born in Italy in 1896, Cardini first immigrated to the United States through
Ellis Island in 1913. He spent some time in Canada but then he returned to Europe where he learned
the restaurant trade. He came back to the US in 1919, and made his way to California where he
worked at the Palace Restaurant in San Francisco and operated Brown's Restaurant in Sacramento
but the tourism boom in Tijuana proved irresistible. Culture Trip explains, “With
every winery, brewery, liquor store and bar forced to close down, unrestricted wild and star-studded
Tijuana was suddenly highly appealing to him.” In 1923 he opened what is today one of Mexico's most
famous eateries, Caesar's Restaurant Bar. Cardini actually operated two establishments in Tijuana,
a restaurant downtown on 2nd street, and later the famous hotel and restaurant, although
Historic Mexico notes, it appears that he continued to live in the United States.
It was there, according to Cardini's daughter Rosa, that the famous salad was invented.
as related in the 2003 obituary for Rosa in the Telegraph UK.
“On Independence Day 1924, business was so brisk that the kitchen began to run short of
ingredients. Cardini decided to cobble together a salad from leftovers, including romaine lettuce,
olive oil, raw egg, garlic, parmesan cheese, and worcestershire sauce. The dressing was
originally mixed at the table and used to coat the lettuce leaves which were presented stem outwards,
so they could be eaten with the fingers, in the time-honored Italian fashion. And so this
signature American dish was actually invented in Mexico by an Italian immigrant.
However there is some dispute over the story. The telegraph continues, “She had frequently, however,
to defend her father's claim to have invented the recipe.” That's not unusual at all, many
inventions, in fact some of the most influential, face controversy over who actually invented them.
The radio, the telephone, the airplane, the light bulb, the sewing machine are
among the hundreds of important inventions for which there is dispute over who the true
inventor was. One particular challenger for the invention of the caesar salad is instructive.
Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices is a popular cookbook written
by George Leonard Herter, founder of an outdoor goods business. Described by Esquire magazine as,
“The manliest cookbook ever written.” The book was self-published and sold through his outdoor goods
stores. The three-volume cookbook series was so popular that it went through 15 editions between
1960 and 1970, and in volume 2, Herder offers an alternative origin story for the popular salad.
“Caesar salad was invented in about 1903 by Giacomo Junia, an Italian cook in Chicago,
Illinois. Giacono Junia was the cook in a small restaurant called the New York Cafe. He catered
to american taste.” and says, “spaghetti and pizza in those days were little eaten by anyone
including Italians. It is sometimes falsely stated that the salad was invented in Tijuana Mexico
during the prohibition period, and also in San Francisco. Nothing could be further from the
truth. The only thing invented in Tijuana were the funnest methods ever produced to clip tourists.”
According to the story, Giacono was not a very good cook, could not successfully make mayonnaise,
so instead used the basic ingredients of mayonnaise to make the famous dressing. Herder
goes on to say that Giacono named the salad after Julius Caesar, the greatest Italian of all times.
This alternative story has been reprinted several times. The website Classic San Diego which focuses
on the culinary history of that city notes that Giacomo Junia’s story was the subject of a 1982
Washington Times article, 1991 United Press International story and even in the LA Times
2003 obituary for Rosa Cardinia. The problem is the story is false. Herder's cookbook might have
been popular, and it's described today as having a cult following but it is hardly reliable. A 2008
edition of the New York Times described it as, “A wild mix of recipes, unsourced claims, and
unhinged philosophy.” Classic San Diego notes the obvious flaw, chef Giacomo Junia appears
never to have existed. There are no pre-1960 references to an Italian-American Giacono Junia,
Jack Junia or Joe Junia in any newspaper database, nor in 1900, 1903, or 1904 Chicago
city directories, nor in the federal census for 1910 and 1920, except for an Italian milkman named
Giacomo Fulina born in 1899, and a Polish-American machinist named Joe Junia born in 1902. There are
no references nor online genealogical family tree links for him either; there are no references
or mentions of a New York Cafe in Chicago or San Francisco city directories from 1903 through 1910.
The entire story seems to be derived solely from Herter's book which is literally entitled,
“Bull”. Classic San Diego concludes, “Giacomo Junia is a phantom,
an ephemeral ghost. He and his recipe are made up. This fictive chef is born from the whimsical
pre-verifications of an amusing storyteller.” And yet these whimsical pre-verifications have
managed to be repeated in multiple sources including reputable ones. Which is well,
a warning for historians, about how one bad story can confuse the telling of history.
But the Junia story is not the only alternative origin story for caesar salad.
Rather than Cardini himself, some stories claim that the salad was invented by a member
of his staff whose mother had made the salad in Sicily. In another, it was invented by Caesar's
brother Alessandro, who by some accounts was Caesar's partner in his Tijuana restaurant.
In that story Alessandro, or Alex, who had been a flier for the Italian military was entertaining
some American pilots when he prepared the salad out of leftover ingredients from the kitchen.
The original salad was called aviator salad and differed from Caesar's recipe by using anchovies.
Well often an ingredient in caesar salad today, Rose Cardini insists that her father opposed the
inclusion of anchovies because the flavor was too strong, with the slightly fishy umami flavor
coming from worcestershire sauce. She says they always used the Lea and Perrins brand.
As with many inventions the truth is obscure, as the San Diego Union Tribune said in 2019.
But as famed Baja chef Javier Plascencia whose family company now owns Caesars restaurant in
Tijuana says, “Problem is, everyone who was involved in the process back then is now dead.
So there's no real way of proving who invented the salad.” Still, there's no denying the fact
that it was Caesar Cardini's restaurant that made the salad famous. The Union Tribune continues,
“There's no serious doubt it came to fame in large part because of the prohibition-era hollywood
celebrities to whom Cardini served it as they chased booze across the border.” A 2018 article on
the website of Ripley's Believe It or Not explains that, “word about the delicious salad spread among
Californians and the Hollywood elite, including actors Clark Gable, Jean Harlow and WC Fields.
People made special trips to Tijuana just to have a taste. They also enjoyed going to Mexico
to imbibe as prohibition was in full swing.” While Historical Mexico notes, “That whether
Cardini's growing reputation was due to the popularity of the caesar salad, or if it was
the salad's popularity was due to the clientele, is a classic the chicken of the egg exercise.”
So for those of you who are thinking, hey History Guy, it's just a salad. The point is that caesar
salad represents a unique point in history where American and Mexican policy combined to create a
place of glamor and excitement that attracted the most famous movie stars of the era. Every caesar
salad that is served is a reminder of a history and that deserves to be remembered.
Among the famous people to enjoy a salad in its original form was a young Julia Child.
In her 1999 book, Julia and Jacques: Cooking At Home, the world famous television chef wrote,
“I am probably one of the few people around who saw the real Cesar Cardini making his salad.
I was about nine when my parents took me to his restaurant in Tijuana, just the other
side of the border from San Diego. They were so excited when big jolly Caesar himself came to
the table to make the salad, which had already been written up and talked about everywhere.”
Child would later recreate the original recipe in her cookbooks with the help of Rose Cardini.
Her enthusiasm for the salad was part of the reason that it has remained so popular.
In her recipe, she mentioned something lost in the modern salad that today is usually made with
finely chopped romaine lettuce. The salad was tossed and dressed, and then arranged on each
plate so that you could pick up a leaf by its short end and chew it down by the bit,
then pick up another. She writes, “However many customers didn't like to get their fingers covered
with egg, and cheese, and garlic dressing. And he changed to the conventional torn leaf. Too bad
since the salad lost much of its individuality, and drama. You can certainly serve it the original
way at home, just provide your guests with plenty of big paper napkins, and plan to be extravagant.”
Her description says so much about why the original salad received so much
attention. It was made at the table side like a production. It was made with whole leaves,
not eaten with a fork but even with the hand. It was unique,
it was extravagant, it was a symbol of the place that Tijuana was at the time. And another famous
person who was served that salad at that restaurant would take the salad worldwide.
Born in Pennsylvania in 1896 to a wealthy and well-connected family, Bessie Wallis Warfield
married a US naval aviator in 1916. Her husband was posted to San Diego in 1921, and she was
reportedly a frequent visitor to Tijuana who, like Julia Child, had the fabulous salad prepared for
her by Cesar Cardini himself. The marriage was rocky, both due to his drinking and his
various military postings, and she had several high-profile affairs; they divorced in 1927. She
then married a British shipping executive, but again the marriage fell on hard times,
and again she had an affair. This time with one of the most eligible bachelors in the world,
Edward the Prince of Wales. After he ascended to the throne as King Edward VIII in January 1936,
she decided to divorce her husband, and the two decided to marry.
The marriage to an American divorcee scandalized the British public, and choosing love over duty,
Edward abdicated the throne of the United Kingdom in December so that the two could marry.
The abdication of the king in favor of his brother, George VI
left the couple styled the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and the scandalous pair remained
married until Edward's death in 1972. And in their travels, Wallace Duchess of Windsor is
largely credited with bringing the caesar salad to Europe. Writer Simon Leyland explained in 2016,
“As a result of Mrs Simpson's extensive world travels, caesar salad was introduced to many
of the great european restaurants by her instructing international chefs, as they
struggled to recreate the dressing to satisfy the soon-to-be Duchess of Windsor's discerning palate.
She insisted that it included romaine, garlic croutons, and parmesan cheese, boiled eggs,
olive oil and worcestershire sauce. The salad was then prepared at table side, and when the salad
dressing was ready the romaine lettuce leaves were coated with dressing, and placed stem side out
in a circle, and served on a flat dinner plate so that the salad could be eaten with the fingers.
In the 1940s, Gourmet Magazine proclaimed the caesar salad to be the gastronomic highlight of
the current moment. And in 1956, the International Society of Epicurus in Paris proclaimed it to be
the greatest recipe to originate in the Americas in 50 years. And it has continued to be popular,
in 2003 the Telegraph noted that by the 1990s, one in four salads sold in American restaurants
was a caesar salad. Although under new ownership, Caesar's Restaurant and Bar is still
open in Tijuana, caesar salad is still produced tableside, and it is still the most popular item
on their menu. But the era where Tijuana was sometimes called “Satan's Playground” was
relatively brief. After the repeal of prohibition tourism decreased in Tijuana and in 1936, Caesar
Cardini sold his restaurants there and operated restaurants in the United States. In 1948,
he patented his recipe but he could not trademark the name caesar salad because it was determined
by then it was already too widely known. The dressing was sold in bottles as Caesar Cardini's
Dressing and you can still get it today. It became a multi-million dollar business, and was operated
by his daughter Rosa until it was sold in 1988. Caesar Cardini died in 1956 at the age of 60.
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