Caesar salad

The Caesar salad is a traditional American food, often prepared tableside. Many people consider it the "King" of salads.

It was invented in the 1920s (probably 1924) by Caesar Cardini, a restauranteur and chef in Tijuana, Mexico. There are several stories about the specifics of its creation, none of which can be confirmed. One is that it was created for a group of Hollywood stars, after a long weekend party. Another is that it was for the Prince of Wales, who was stuck in Tijuana due to weather. Both stories say that Caesar had to whip something up from what he had left in his kitchen, and the Caesar salad is what he came up with. If one of these stories is true, or close to the truth, Mr. Cardini must have been inspired, because the whole is most definitely more than the sum of its parts.

Nobody seems to know exactly when or how the anchovies were added to the salad, but they were definitely not in the original recipe.

Many people are concerned about eating a Caesar salad today due to the potential risk of salmonella poisoning from the raw (actually, coddled) egg.

Unfortunately in recent years the popularity of the salad has caused very poor imitations, often using tasteless prepared and bottled sauces, to appear at many medium quality restaurants, particularly chain restaurants in the United States, such as Bennigan's and the like. One must carefully interrogate one's server now to ensure an actual Caesar will appear at the table and not a poor imitation.

Recipe:

Anyone have one not copyrighted? Caesar's original would be wonderful