Have you ever wondered by those who take the name of the Cesar Saladthe green salad based on Roman lettuce, chicken, parmesan and crostini? No, not from Caio Giulio Cesare, one of the most important and influential general and political in the history of Rome. Always from Cesare, however, it is: Cesare Cardini, chef and restaurateur Born in Baveno, on Lake Maggiore, in 1896 and moved to the United States of America with the brothers Alessandro and Gaudenzio when he was still very young. And the salad that takes from him the name has already celebrated a hundred years!
The story of Cesare Cardini and the exhausted one born by chance
After spending a few years a San Diegoin California, where he had opened his First restaurant in 1919Cardini moved not far to Mexico, a Tijuanawhere he opened another in 1926, to get around the Prohibitionist laws which since 1920 prevented from administering alcohol and to intercept the Americans on the border.
It is said that Cesar’s restaurant It was so renowned that on some occasions it could be short of supplies: one day, missing the ingredients necessary to compose the usual mixed salad, Cardini put together what had remained in the pantry and how much he had managed to buy in the zone hempors. The restaurant began to propose to customers a salad Based on Roman lettuce, Parmesan, lemons, bread, olive oil, eggs and worker sauce. The rest is history. Or rather: stories.
The other versions of the story
According to some reconstructions, The recipe was born in 1926 in the kitchens of Cesar’s; According to others, including the version of Rosa Cardini, the chef’s only daughter, was created two years earlier, in another restaurant owned by the father, the Alhambra Cafe, the July 4, 1924on the occasion of the day of American independence, which for many was chosen only as a symbolic date.
But there is another version of the story, collected by the New York Times and which is handed down by Aldo Santini, son of Livio, an Italian immigrant who worked as a cook in Cardini’s restaurant: according to this version, Cardini would have “stolen” the recipe from Livio’s mother. It seems that Cardini had prepared the salad for himself in a moment of nostalgia at home, and that a client had asked him to taste it. From the next day, it would end up in the menu.
The spread of Cesar Salad and the evolution of the original recipe
A few years later, after the prohibition, Cardini returned to the United States: in 1948 patented the dressing With a variation of the ingredients (oil, lemon juice, egg, wine vinegar, parmesan, salt, garlic and spices), enjoying growing success and founded the Caesar Cardini Foods Inc.together with his daughter Rosa, to put him on the market on a large scale.
Cesar Salad became increasingly famous, arriving, or in a certain way “returning”, also in Europe: as the recipe climbed the boundaries, it was enriched with new ingredients, of which the most common is today chicken, but also anchovies, especially in North America. With the growth of the fame of the exhaust, also the brother of Cesare, Alessandro Cardini, claimed the paternity of the recipe: the pilot version had anchovies and would be born to fight a hangover. Whatever the precise origin of this dish, nobody has ever managed to change its name.
