When: July 4
National Caesar Salad Day on July 4th is fitting: one of America's most beloved salads was invented on the Fourth of July in 1924, just across the US-Mexico border in Tijuana, by an Italian immigrant trying to feed a crowd with whatever was left in the kitchen. The Caesar's origin is as American as the holiday it accidentally shares.
Caesar salad was invented in Tijuana, not Rome — by an Italian immigrant named Caesar Cardini who made it from pantry scraps during a Fourth of July rush in 1924, with no anchovies in the original recipe.
Caesar Cardini was born in Italy, moved to the United States, and by the early 1920s was running restaurants on both sides of the US-Mexico border — California operations for regular business and a Tijuana restaurant to serve American customers who'd come south during Prohibition to drink legally. On the weekend of July 4th, 1924, his Tijuana restaurant was slammed with holiday traffic and the kitchen was nearly depleted. Cardini improvised. With romaine lettuce, olive oil, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, coddled egg, Parmesan, and croutons, he assembled a salad at the table — a theatrical touch that was partly showmanship and partly necessity. The original Caesar had no anchovies. Cardini was adamant about this his entire life, and his daughter Rosa later claimed that the Worcestershire's anchovy-derived umami was what people were tasting when they insisted on anchovy's presence. The anchovy version was reportedly popularized by other chefs who worked at or visited Cardini's...