Thank you, Doctor. (May I call you Deth?) I appreciate the information.
Absolutely agreed. Iceberg is fine for that crunch and texture, without overwhelming flavor. (Shredded cabbage also works splendidly on a taco, but it has a different texture and tastes different, too, obviously.) I also like iceberg lettuce in the summer because it quenches my thirst. It’s the perfect counterpoint to a hot meal I’m eating. I tend to eat main dishes and salad together (in my family, salad was always served with the main dish), so I’ll go in for a bite of meat and potatoes, and follow it up with a mouthful of salad, usually iceberg, because it’s refreshing. On their own, sure, I prefer other greens. But as part of a meal, either as an ingredient or side, I like iceberg. Go figure.
Sure, anything for a friend!
But to the rest of you- I didnt put myself thru 8 years of evil overlord school to be called Mister!
(bolding mine)
And that’s why I like it. The lettuce is there to hold the toppings, as far as I’m concerned. It’s the same reason I, in most cases*, prefer my sandwiches on white bread. The bread is there to contain the ingredients, and I want to taste the ingredients. Grainy breads overwhelm the flavor of the ingredients.
- My one exception is pastrami or corned beef on rye bread.
I love a well-made Caesar salad, and agree that it has to have certain ingredients to qualify for the Caesar title. Let’s see, they are:
Romaine lettuce
Croutons
Parmesan cheese
And the dressing, which ought to contain:
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Red wine vinegar
Dijon mustard
Raw egg yolk or very soft-boiled whole egg
Fresh ground black pepper
Parmesan cheese
Garlic
Anchovies
I haven’t made one in a long time, and I ought to do so this weekend. I think I have all the ingredients on hand.
Sorry, Chronos, but I have to agree with silenus, as I usually do on food topics. Bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches can ONLY be made with iceberg. I’ve gotten so tired of picking thru bagged salad for the iceberg when I need it that I have returned to buying heads of it…and now I’ve craving a wedge salad. You can’t substitute spinach or even Romaine…maybe Bibb, but really nothing beats it for cool crunchiness that enhances rather than overpowers.
Worcestershire sauce can sub for the 'chovies. If so, add extra garlic.
It’s people like you what cause unrest.
Worcestershire? This is why they burned witches.
The original recipe used Worcester sauce. Cesar didn’t like the anchovy variant.
Bah. What does he know?
From Snopes:
It seems obvious, right? Caesar salad must have been named for Julius Caesar, or maybe he even invented it. After all, those ancient Romans knew how to eat, and this guy was the most famous of them all!
It’s hard to argue with logic such as that. Nevertheless, we shall.
Caesar salads have no connection whatsoever to Julius Caesar, or indeed to any of the Caesars who ruled Rome and her far-flung empire. It instead honors
Caesar Cardini, a famed restaurateur who, according to lore, invented the dish in Tijuana, Mexico, in 1924 when a rush of diners on the Fourth of July strained his kitchen’s resources and he had to make do with whatever ingredients were left on hand.
Cardini’s original recipe called for romaine, garlic, croutons, Parmesan cheese, boiled eggs, olive oil, and Worcestershire sauce. He was said to be staunchly against the inclusion of anchovies in the mixture, contending that Worcestershire sauce is adequate to provide the faint fishy flavor. (So, for the record, is Alton Brown of FoodTV’s Good Eats. He too eschews anchovies in favor of Worcestershire, as per the recipe he shared with television audiences as part of a 21 September 2002 “Salad Daze” segment.)
Read more at Origins of Caesar Salad | Snopes.com
Hasn’t anyone else here ever had the original Caesar Salad in Tijuana?
I feel like you people will appreciate this.
I recently made my 64 year old mother her first ever caesar salad. She has an egg allergy, and never dared risk it before. I blended a bunch of parmesan into the dressing itself, to sub some of the eggy richness, loosely based on this. She liked it!
Meh, it’s just a dressing delivery device, and it’s perfectly serviceable for that purpose.
Don’t get me wrong, I prefer other types to it, but it is what it is, and there ain’t nothin wrong with that.
Wait, why would a restaurant in Tijuana experience an (apparently) unexpected rush on the Fourth of July? I know a lot of Mexicans, and as far as I know, July 4 has no significance in their home country.
That makes sense. Modern labels on bottles of Worcestershire sauce will list “anchovies” as an ingredient, but the older version was “rotted fish” (I came across a bottle with that on the label, early in my cooking career). The story behind Worcestershire sauce is that the creator was trying to come up with a fish-based sauce, but the result was craptastic. He abandoned a batch of sauce in a barrel in his basement, and forgot about it until a few months later. He came across that batch that had been sitting there all that time, and tasted it, and it was awesome.
Alas, my only trip to Mexico was in 1978, when I was 12 years old, and we only visited Nogales, across the border from Yuma, AZ (we were visiting my birthplace). Didn’t get to sample the cuisine. In any case, I was still 5 years away from starting my cooking career.
He had opened the restaurant in Tijuana because it was prohibition. The place was full of Americans on the Fourth of July because the couldn’t drink in the US.
That makes sense.