Insufferable Caesars

I used to love a great Caesar salad, loaded with garlic and black anchovies. But these days, I mostly avoid Caesars because what passes for one is garbage. And don’t get me started on white anchovies.

The Caesar salad was created in 1924 in Tijuana, Mexico, not Italy, as many believe. Its creator, Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who ran a restaurant, made it out of necessity when a busy holiday weekend depleted the kitchen’s supplies. In this way, the origin of the Caesar salad is similar to that of its cousin, the Waldorf.

I have enjoyed about five superb, classic Caesars in my lifetime. The best one was homemade, following the Joy of Cooking recipe, which calls for croutons toasted in both butter and olive oil, fresh garlic, an egg boiled for only one minute, and of course, a smattering of black anchovies.

I’ve also relished memorable restaurant Caesars, where a show is made of preparing the salad tableside. I ate one of these on a long-ago trip to the Greenbrier, but on my last visit there, the Caesar was a limp, overdressed disaster.

Bad Caesar

Which brings me to bad Caesars. They are as ubiquitous as the air we breathe.

At Flour, a dismal Italian spot down the street, a recent Caesar salad might as well have come from a plastic bag, with Parmesan powder and bottled dressing. The worst part of a bad Caesar is the Parmesan cheese. Real Parmesan, which can only come from a giant wheel, is a gift from the food gods and makes the salad sublime; usually, you get the culinary equivalent of pencil-eraser dust.

Then there are the endless, pointless variations on a Caesar. At the gone-but-never-forgotten fire, my all-time favorite Cleveland restaurant, “Karen’s Caesar” came with an array of spoons offering optional add-ons, from cured salmon to chopped egg to red onion to capers. These options were admittedly tasty, but once added, the salad was no longer a Caesar. At least they were not as terrible as adding tomatoes—or cucumber—to a Caesar salad.

The dreaded Kale Caesar could be the worst version of a Caesar. I admit that the one at Il Buco in New York is terrific -- but it is a Caesar in name only.

I also deplore adding chicken or salmon to a Caesar. White anchovies, instead of the requisite black ones, are atrocious.

The last thing I will say about a proper Caesar is that the dressing must be prepared in a wooden bowl and then incorporated upward with the addition of crisp Romaine lettuce. If you are pouring Caesar dressing from a bottle into a ceramic bowl, I don’t want to know you.

For someone as passionate as I am about a proper Caesar, you’d think I would make the effort to prepare the Joy of Cooking one, especially since I have bragged about it to Joe for decades now.

I will make him a deal: If he agrees to eat a few black anchovies, I will make him a salad worthy of a Roman emperor.

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