Confession: A few months ago, when my friend Mike D. told me that the Caesar salad originated in Mexico, I called him a liar and a cheat. I wasn’t wrong, of course. He is a liar and a cheat. But, as it turns out, not about that.
According to wikipedia, source of all things hallowed and true, the Caesar salad was created by Cesar Cardini in a border town restaurant on July 4, 1924. Cesar was an Italian-born Mexican living in San Diego and working in Tijuana (which might explain some of the confusion), and the salad, like many great dishes, was created in a desperate moment, while Cesar was trying to accomodate a rush of holiday revelers pouring over the border to escape party-pooping American restaurants constrained by Prohibition.
Despite this humbling proof that I know nothing about Caesar salad (and really, much more frustrating, that, in fact, Mike D. does), it turns out I have continued to air untruths about this favorite dish of mine.
For instance, just this weekend Steve and I found ourselves enjoying dinner in the Old Port with our friends Paul and Zoe. Zoe is four months pregnant and when I asked her if she had been having any cravings, she confessed (much to my complete thrill) that she needs a French fry fix at least once a week. SO much better than dill pickles and vanilla ice cream! I can totally hang with a French fry junkie, so we headed to Bull Feeney’s Pub–home to some of the best potato and sweet potato fries I’ve tasted this side of the Atlantic.
Zoe and I split an entire plate of them, complete with all the fixings which, at Bull Feeney’s includes not just ketchup, but super spicy curry mayo and horseradish mayo. We also ordered a Caesar salad with grilled chicken, but when the waitress asked if we wanted anchovies with that, my heart sank. The question invariably means that there are no anchovies in the dressing which, hello, is where the anchovies belong. Zoe and I answered no and yes simultaneously, and without missing a beat, our waitress offered graciously to bring them on the side.
I’m quite sure there is nothing more unappetizing than a whole anchovy filet. Unless of course it’s several whole anchovy filets–which is what arrived in a metal ramekin alongside our salad 15 minutes later. Anchovies belong in a Caesar. But even I, an unabashed anchovy fan, can not bring myself to eat whole filets sandwiched between crunchy leaves of romaine lettuce.
Well, anchovies or no anchovies, the salad was delicious–and I told Paul that when he asked. ‘You didn’t eat your anchovies,’ he observed. I told him I would have if the anchovies had been in the dressing, where they belonged.
‘But then it would be hard to order them on the side,’ he reasoned.
‘Then one should not be ordering a Caesar salad,’ I contested hotly, implying, of course, that a Caesar isn’t a Caesar with out them.
Well, as it turns out, a Caesar IS a Caesar with out them. In fact, some intolerant diehards dispute the authenticity of dressings fortified with the oily filets. And here I am, wrong again, having a nice little lunch of my own words.
But might I venture to suggest that there exists in this modern world, improvements on original ideas? Even on original ideas that were good to begin with? I submit a Caesar dressing, walloped with a healthy dose of MINCED anchovies as one of those improvements. But I PROMISE that I’ll shut up about it.
