Fra Noi Embrace Your Inner Italian
Now on menus across the country, Caesar’s salad is said to have been invented a century ago by an Italian chef in Mexico.
According to legend, Caesar Cardini came up with the dish on July 4, 1924, at his restaurant, Caesar’s Place, in Tijuana, Mexico, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Cardini was struggling to feed an influx of Californians who had crossed the border to escape Prohibition, so he threw together the ingredients at hand: whole Romaine leaves with garlic-flavored oil, Worcestershire sauce, lemons, eggs and Parmesan.
Tijuana commemorated the anniversary in July with a three-day food and wine festival, and the unveiling of a statue of Cardini.
Cardini was born in 1896 near Lake Maggiore, in northern Italy, and immigrated to the United States in the 1910s. He operated a French restaurant in San Diego and, after Prohibition was enacted in 1920, he opened the restaurant across the border in Tijuana, where he could serve alcohol, according to Food & Wine magazine.
A few years after his invention, Cardini opened another, more elegant restaurant in Tijuana called Caesar’s, which serves up to 300 Caesar salads each day.
There is some debate about the origins of the salad: Some claim it was invented by the mother of Livio Santini, one of Cardini’s chefs, while others say it was the brainchild of Cardini’s brother Alex, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
