Caesar Salad, before the meal (1947, 1949)

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   Smaller town newspapers are still important, because they often pick up
the stuff from bigger newspapers as well as syndicated columns (Hollywood).
   Ancestry.com has a 1947 antedating for our Caesar.


   1 February 1947, TIMES RECORDER (Zanesville, Ohio),  "Earl Wilson" column
(from NEW YORK POST), pg. 5?, col. 4:
   The Caesar Salad, which Mike Romanoff'll let you have at a sacrifice--only
2 bucks--is glorified garlic.  It's garlic with glamour.
   The first time I heard of a 2-buck salad, I wanted to render unto Caesar
what was Caesar's---a big loud razzberry.
   Then my beautiful wife, Rosemary, pointed out that it was an aristocrat of
foods.
   Like stone crabs in Miami, oysters Rockefeller in New Orleans, lobsters in
Boston, cream cheese and bagels in New York.
   "Why do they call it Caesar Salad?" I kept asking.  And finally I found it
was invented by an Italian names Caesar Gardini in his Tiajuana restaurant,
called Caesar's.  Edmund Lowe tasted it there and brought it to Hollywood.
Caesar's ex-partner, Peter Frigerio, formerly at the Colony and Marguery in New
York, is now a captain at Henri's here where, of course, you can get a w
onderful Caesar Salad.  But confidentially, the French-born Henri De Charpentier,
who's chef there and used to be at Lynbrook, L. I., thinks it's a big mistake to
down such a huge glamorous salad b before the main course.
   Because, for the most cockeyed of reasons, the Californians do eat their
salads before the main course.
   A little girl here of about 9 was heard telling her mother she'd run into
one of those freak Easterners.  "They're so funny, mama," she said.  "They eat
their salad after the meat."
   Chef Henri says, his 250 pounds trembling with indignation, "How can you
start with a salad and appreciate the wonderful food that's to come?  I've
never seen it in the world before.  Dat's against good eating.  It's a grave
mistake."
   "I think the waiters started it," Peter says.  "Dey served the salad first
to get rid of the customers (Col. 5--ed.) and get a quick turnover."
   So that you can all enjoy some of this delicacy, even in your little huts
(like mine), my B. W. smuggled out Romanoff's Caesar Salad recipe.  This was
on a previous trip here.
   Then she tried making one, with me helping.  "The tough part is coddling
an egg," she told me.  "I've coddled you for so long an egg will give me no
trouble," I said.
  Here the recipe:  Upon getting up in the morning, say around 3 in the
afternoon, slice some French bread into 1/2-inch hunks.  Fry these in butter.
Brown slightly.  (Any shade of brown at all, khaki is very nice).  Let cool.  Then
rub the hunks with garlic.  Does the joint start to smell a little?  I
thought so.  Nice going, keed.
   My son Slugger, 4, tried at this point to put a tennis ball into the salad
bowl.
   But after I told him the recipe specifically didn't call for a tennis
ball, he went right ahead any way.
   To go on with the recipe if you still want to, deposit your small boy
neatly in a clothes closet and lock the door.  Then cut up a head of romaine
lettuce into salad bowl.  Add garlic bread.  Mix some garlic ollive oil (there's
more damned garlic in this salad), add that, then losing your head completely,
heave in juice of 1 1/2 lemons, plus a dash of Worcestershire sauce.  Next you
coddle an egg and break it into salad bowl.  Toss in fresh-ground pepper until
you sneeze five times, add salt, 4 or 5 teaspoons of Parmesan cheese and, if
you really want to live dangerously, some anchovies.
   Stir till arm falls off, hold nose, and serve.


   9 April 1949, HERALD PRESS (St. Joseph, Michigan), "Here's Hollywood!" by
Bob Thomas, pg. 5, col. 5:
   Want to know about Hollywood's favorite dish?  And I don't mean Betty
Grable.
   O'm speaking of the Caesar salad, also known by DiCicco, California,
Golden West and other aliases.  It's safe to say that it is the most ordered dish
in any of the filmtown's swank restaurants.
   Origin of the salad is obscure.  Some say it was born in an eatery named
Caesar's in Tijuana, Mexico.  At any rate, it has taken the classy cafes by
storm.  It is usually mixed at the table with a grace exhibited by Jules Munshin
as the head waiter in "Easter Parade."
   Actually, any fool can make a Caesar.  I do it often.  Many husbands make
a ritual of whipping up the salad, even those who can't boil an egg without
burning it.  It brings out the ham in a man.
   At the risk of being picketed by the home economics dept., I offer
directions for the Caesar salad, as Hollywood makes it.  We'll make it for two
servings, since you'd better not try it on company the first time out.
   Have these things ready:
   Romaine lettuce, broken into bite size and chilled.
   Garlic oil--drop a cut-up clove of garlic into a small jar of salad oil
and let it mellow indefinitely.
   Croutons--cut a couple of bread slices (French is best) into small cubes,
douse with the garlic oil and brown in oven.
   Now drop these things on the lettuce:
   A couple of sloshes of the garlic oil.
   Ditto of plain salad oil and of vinegar (wine vinegar preferred).
   Sprinkles of salt, coarse pepper and mustard flour.
   A few drops of Worchestershire sauce.
   Juice of half a lemon.
   Three or four strips of anchovies, chopped fine.
   Sprinkles of Parmesan cheese (Col. 6--ed.) (crumbled Roquefort or blue
cheese, too, if desieed.)
   A one-minute egg--this holds the dressing together.
   Croutons.
   Notes:  Toss it well and serve just before eating so lettuce and croutons
don't get soggy.  Some mix the dressing in a separate bowl instead of on the
lettuce, but they are mostly squares.
   If you don't think this is the best salad you've ever tasted, send it,
together with $10 to cover the cost of handling, to this writer.  I love it.