Alison Stewart: We have celebrated some major birthdays. Monday was WNYC's 100th birthday. Last week was America's 248th, but there's one more birthday I wanted to shout out, and I'll give you a hint. It just turned 100. It's green, it's leafy, crunchy, and cheesy. Hail Caesar salad, you're a century old. The Caesar salad was invented in Tijuana, Mexico, and the original rendition was eaten by hand, not with a fork. Now, of course, with anything famous, there's an ongoing dispute over who invented the dish.

The author of the recent New York Times article titled The Century-Long Saga of the Caesar Salad is joining us now. Pati Jinich, cookbook author and host of the Emmy-nominated PBS series, Pati Mexican Table. Pati, welcome back to the show.

Pati Jinich: Thank you so much, Alison, I love chatting with you. This is such a treat. Thank you for having me on.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we want you to get in on the conversation. We're celebrating the 100th birthday of the Caesar salad. What do you love about the salad? Do you have a particular recipe you're proud of? Maybe you've mastered the art of making the best Caesar dressing, or perhaps you have a favorite twist on the iconic dish, the chicken Caesar salad wrap or the Caesar pasta salad. Tell us what you love about Caesar salads. Our phone lines are open. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can call or text that number. Our social media is available as well, @AllOfItWNYC.

The salad turns 100 this year, and you trace its origins to the place called Caesar's. It's a border town. It's in a border town in Tijuana, Mexico, and the celebration took place on the 4th of July. Can we actually trace it to that date? Is that the actual date of the birth of the Caesar salad?

Pati Jinich: Well, it is quite a mystery, Alison. I've been researching these for such a long time, and I was actually at the celebration in Tijuana last week. It was such a feast. The first time that I tasted the Caesar salad in Tijuana was when I was filming my docu-series, La Frontera, where I trekked from San Diego, Tijuana to Brownsville. It was a five-hour series, and I started the second season there. Like much of the gifts that have come from the borderlands, people don't know about it. Even Mexicans don't know that the Caesar salad began in Tijuana.

It is such an iconic dish. I think it really comes to show many things from the borderlands. First of all, the borderlands isn't only Tex-Mex, it isn't only Mexicans trying to cross the border. The borderlands have 31 million people now that live in those communities and that enrich not only one country, but two, and like the Caesar salad, many times the world. There are communities that have come from all different countries, different historical times, like Italians in the 1920s. This is where the Caesar salad originated.

There was a group of Italian restaurateurs, chefs, and just hospitality professionals that had emigrated to the US in the 1910s, in the 1920s. When prohibition era hit, they moved to Tijuana, which was the closest place where they could do business. Now, these Italians that moved to Tijuana were doing business in San Francisco, in Los Angeles. Along with these Italians that started to open up shop, what flocked were celebrities and VIPs from all over the US that wanted to just have whatever they couldn't have in the US. Alcohol, gambling, betting, boxing matches, bullfights.

They were finding all that fun in Tijuana. The birth of the Caesar is really connected to that golden age of Tijuana, to prohibition era glamour in Mexico, and to Italians cooking in the borderlands. It was quite the luxury. Now, Caesar Cardini was the man who owned Caesar's. Before Caesar's restaurant, he had owned Caesar's place in another place called Alhambra Café. The version that says that Caesar Cardini, created the salad says that he started making the salad on the 4th of July of 1924. Now, there's another version, and it used to prevail for the last couple decades.

That version said that it was Aldo Santini, a cook that emigrated into Mexico at the end of 1924, in December of 1924. He and his family, his descendants, claimed that it was him that was making this salad in the kitchen, that he used to make it when he was homesick for Italy, that this was a salad that his mom used to make for him, and that a very glamorous woman client had seen him make the salad, had asked for a bite, loved it, and then Caesar Cardini started putting it on the menu and making a tableside.

Those two versions are not only competing, but they have another competing version that says that Alex Cardini, Caesar's brother, was the one who created the salad. What's happened is that in these hundred years, many people and families have tried to claim a patent for the Caesar salad dressing for locations that sell and that make the Caesar salad. There's so much involved, but I don't think we will really know who was the first one to make the salad in Tijuana. We do know it was Tijuana. We do know it was 1924.

Alison Stewart: Well, we've got Beth on the phone who's got almost 100-year-old recipe to share with us. Hi, Beth.

Beth: Hi, how are you?

Alison Stewart: Doing great.

Beth: Good, and welcome back, Alison. We missed you.

Alison Stewart: Thank you.

Beth: Okay, so I have been following my uncle's recipe. My uncle was born in 1928. He's 96. He's been using this recipe ever since I was a kid. I was in Mexico in Manzanillo for my daughter's best friend quinceañera, when they were all 15. We had dinner at a restaurant at our hotel, and we ordered a Caesar salad. The waiter came over and it was one of those things where he put it on the stand and he was making it at our table.

I asked him if I could join him and see what his recipe was, and it was exactly identical to my uncle's recipe. I'm using it to this day, and it is a traditional, fantastic recipe.

Alison Stewart: Well, Beth, thank you so much for calling in. If I were to order the Caesar salad 100 years ago, say it's 1924, what would I expect to get?

Pati Jinich: That is what shocked me. Alison, the original Caesar salad did not whisk a dressing beforehand. What they used to do was grab a big salad bowl, put the lettuce leaves first, and the romaine lettuce leaves were rinsed, dried, and kept cold in the refrigerator so they were chilled. They would put the lettuce leaves on the bowl, and then they would add one by one these ingredients, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, garlic-flavored oil, and a coddled egg, like an entire coddled egg. This is basically a raw egg that has been cooked for just one minute.

Then they would add a grated parmesan, really good reggiano parmesano, and mix it all. Then they would top it with a crouton or a large slice of baguette that was also flavored with a garlic olive oil and placed on top. They would mix it all so they wouldn't emulsify the vinaigrette first, which if you were to go to Caesar's today, you would find them making the salad dressing first, whisking it, emulsifying it, using only the yolk, not the egg white, and they also add the Dijon mustard, pressed garlic, and anchovy fillets, minced anchovies.

It turns out that and instead of lemon juice, lime juice. The salad has evolved tremendously in these hundred years. There are versions all over the world, but those are the two main that I think that represent what a Caesar salad is because that one that I told you about with the anchovy filets has been made since 2010.

Alison Stewart: I understand, though, that you used to actually eat it with your hands.

Pati Jinich: Well, I eat it with my hands, too. I think when you go to Caesar's, they recommend that you eat it with your hands. You can think in the 1920s, when all these glamorous VIP, celebrities, royalty were flocking to Tijuana, you can think of it as the Las Vegas, like early Las Vegas of the time in the borderlands, where there were no rules, really. It was like a crazy amount of fun. You can picture these very large, really charming Italian immigrant with a lovely accent whisking the salad tableside. It was the now you eat it with your fingers.

It was the charming, anything goes. You can eat a salad with your hands, which also made it go viral worldwide, but there is something about eating the salad with your fingers. You get messy with the creamy dressing, and you have to lick your fingers, and then you munch on the crouton. It's kind of you're going all in. It's not what we think of when we think of, like a pristine, clean salad that you eat with a fork. I think that made it more appealing as well because it was no rules. Eat it with your hands, but it does taste much better that way.

Alison Stewart: [chuckles] My guest is Pati Jinich. She's a chef and a food journalist. She has been on the case because we're celebrating the centennial of the Caesar salad. Listeners, we're celebrating the centennial. We want to know what do you love about the Caesar salad. Do you have a particular recipe you're proud of? Have you mastered making the Caesar salad? Maybe you have a twist on the iconic dish or maybe you want to tell us where your favorite place in New York is to get a Caesar salad. We would love for you to join the conversation.

Our phone number is 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Get in on the Caesar salad conversation. We've got Elise on the line calling in. Hi, Elise.

Elise: Hey, thanks so much for taking my call. I am a die-hard Caesar salad fan, and I know that ideally, we want to make our own dressing at home, but I'm wondering, what is your favorite bottled Caesar salad dressing?

Alison Stewart: Bottled Caesar salad dressing. Are you allowed to say that in your position?

Pati Jinich: I mean, I have to say there are countless Caesar salad dressings that you can find in the stores right now. You would be shocked to know that you can find the Caesar salad dressing that Caesar Cardini, the Caesar Cardini patented in the 1940s. You can still find it today because he started a company called Caesar Cardini Foods after prohibition era ended and gambling was banned in Mexico and the economic recession started, he moved back to the US and he continued making the Caesar salad his way.

By then, it was so famous, and it was being made all over the world. An interesting thing is that when he started making the Caesar salad, it wasn't called Caesar salad. It was called the Parmigiano-Reggiano romaine lettuce salad. It was everybody that started calling it the Caesar salad, those who ate it with Caesar or at Caesar's. He became really disgruntled and wanted to have a bite of that business because everybody was making money of it. He fought very hard to get a patent. He couldn't get a patent for the Caesar salad as it is because you can't patent lettuce or bread.

He was able to patent the Caesar Cardini dressing, and you can still find it today. I have not tried it, but people tell me that it's really good, but you can find it and buy it online. You can also find versions from his brother, Alex, who claimed that he had the best version of the Caesar salad, and that he actually taught his brother how to do it by whisking and emulsifying the vinaigrette first, which you have to do to make a salad.

Then there are other people who claim that they were the ones, like Gennaro [unintelligible 00:13:45], who were the ones who added anchovies because this is very interesting for your color and for you, Alison. The Worcestershire sauce has evolved through time. Apparently, we call it salsa inglesa, or I call it W sauce because I have a hard time pronouncing it. It used to have a much more pronounced flavor of anchovies. It does contain anchovies, and it used to be thicker and much more pungent, intense, and savory.

Apparently, through time, they've made it lighter and it has less anchovy. You can also guess that things have changed through time. If you were to get that Caesar salad dressing, probably you wouldn't be able to taste it as it was then because it includes the Worcestershire sauce as we have it now. I guess I didn't answer your question. I didn't recommend a Caesar salad dressing.

Alison Stewart: She gave us a good place to go. Definitely gave us a good place to go. Hey, we're going to have more with 100th centennial, the 100th birthday, the centennial of the Caesar salad with Pati Jinich, and more of your calls after a quick break. This is All Of It. You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Pati Jinich. She's the author of the New York Times article titled The Century-Long Saga of the Caesar Salad. Pati is also a cookbook author and host of the Emmy-nominated series, Pati Mexican Table.

We're taking your calls about the Caesar salad. It's celebrating its hundredth anniversary. Let's talk to Carol from Manhattan. Hi, Carol.

Carol: Hi.

Alison Stewart: Hi.

Carol: Should I just jump in?

Alison Stewart: Go for it. Tell me.

Carol: I've had Caesar salads literally all over the world, and sometimes it's made-to-order with all the ingredients on a tray, and sometimes it just comes straight from the kitchen, but it doesn't matter. The best that I really, and it stood up over time, I've been eating it there for many years, is Elephant & Castle, which is a very small, laid-back place that you wouldn't guess is the best in anything, but their Caesar salad is without tear. They used to serve it with an egg on top so you'd mix the egg in yourself. It very often has anchovies. Very few. Just a little bite.

Alison Stewart: Just a little bite. Thank you so much. Let's talk to Erica. Hi, Erica. Thanks for calling in.

Erica: Hey, thanks so much for taking my call. I love this segment. My dad actually uses a Caesar salad as a barometer for how good a restaurant is. I will say his favorite is at a place in Bermuda called Romanov.

Probably not so helpful to most people listening right now, but what I had told your screener was several years back, I was in San Diego for a conference and made a special trip with my mom and older daughter down to Tijuana just to go to the original Caesar's, or what we thought was the original Caesar's restaurant and saw the whole process of them making it tableside, kind of like you sometimes see in a Mexican restaurant where they do guacamole from scratch. Just the process and the theater of it was so, so fun. Totally worth the trip if anyone's ever in San Diego.

Alison Stewart: Thanks for the call. Let's talk to Jesse. Jesse has a differing opinion right now. Hey, Jesse, thanks for calling.

Jesse: Hi, how are you? I'm a chef, and welcome back, Alison and Pati. I love your show. I love your kids. I always watch your show, but I spent my honeymoon down, I used to go down to Ensenada a lot. We went down to the Rosarito Beach Hotel in '77 for our honeymoon. They claim that that is where the Caesar salad was invented and the Rosarito Beach Hotel was a casino and all that history. Of course, it's changed a lot since when I was there, but they claim that that is the home of the Caesar salad.

Alison Stewart: Thank you.

Jesse: What do you think, Pati?

Alison Stewart: Yes. What do you think, Pati?

Pati Jinich: Yes, that's a thing. Thank you so much for watching the show, that means so much and thanks for sticking with me through all these years. I think that is kind of the magic of the Caesar salad. There's no doubt about it. In all my research, it was started in Tijuana, not Rosarito. Rosarito is not far away from Tijuana. What happened was that every cook that worked in Tijuana's, Caesar Cardini's restaurants, and there was not only one, he opened one after another after another after another and made them bigger and bigger and bigger.

He started with the Cardinal brothers, then Alhambra Café, then Caesar's place, then Caesar's restaurant, then Caesar's restaurant, then hotel. That's why the research is so hard and so dark. In all of those places, they were making this salad. Who knows if it was him or Mr. Santini or someone else, or maybe it was all these Italian immigrants. This was a salad that people were making back home that they started recreating it in Tijuana. Everybody that started, that worked for Caesar Cardini started making the salad in different restaurants as close as next door because they wanted a bite of that success.

That theatrics that your other caller was talking about, having this card being brought to you, to your table, that was unprecedented then. With all these fancy Italian ingredients and the attention, the hospitality, and then the luxury of having it brought to you on your plate and then you licking your fingers when you eat it. I mean, that whole experience, everybody wanted a bite of it. They started making it in Rosarito, in Ensenada, in Tijuana, in San Diego, and now all over the world. You also find versions in Mexico City that claim that they were the very first ones to do it, and in Puebla, too.

For example, Caesar Cardini's brother, Alex Cardini moved to Mexico City and started making it there and started saying, "Hey, that was my salad." The thing is, the salad goes by Caesar. It was under Caesar that it became famous. Whether he created it or not, it was under his management that the salad became these viral, magical things. I think it's like the margarita. There are quite a few bars that call themselves to be the originators of the margarita. There's one in Ensenada. I don't know if you went too.

If you were in Rosarito, you probably went there, too. There's also one in Ciudad Juárez, and the origin stories are so much fun.

Alison Stewart: Got some good social media and some text. This is from X. Bob writes, "The Caesar salads at Greenpoint Fish and Bernie's are outstanding." I can point to the green point fish, yes. This is a great text, Pati. "My favorite part of the Caesar salad is the part most people hate, anchovies. I was at a restaurant with several friends, all of whom ordered the salad, and all said no anchovies. When they got to me, I also ordered the salad, and jokingly said, they could bring me all the anchovies no one else wanted. To my surprise, they brought me a dish of anchovies, which I ate with gusto."

This is an important question. "I love Caesar salad, but we are warned not to eat raw eggs. What can we do to the egg to make it safe?"

Pati Jinich: This is a great question, and I have to agree with your caller that loves anchovies. In my home, we're obsessed with anchovies, to the point that my oldest son, Alan, started making a pasta where he cooks a little bit of onion, a whole jar, or thin kind of anchovies, and just a tad of tomato paste. Then we eat that whole thing with pasta. Anyway, I also always ask for the anchovies that people don't want to eat, and I eat them directly. I don't even bother putting them on bread. I was saying about the egg.

That's why they used to coddle the egg and still do today in some restaurants, like Caesar's in Tijuana because if you cuddle the egg, if you cook the egg for anywhere from 45 to 60 seconds, you're making sure that there is no bacteria outside of the egg. That is the worry that when you crack a raw egg, you're going to get whatever bacteria is on the outside of the egg, and it's going to go into your food. As long as you boiled it for 45 to 60 seconds, you're getting rid of that. The raw egg really has no risk.

There's no risk in the raw egg, but coddling also makes the yolk and the white be just a little thicker.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Basil online, too, calling in from Williamsburg. Hi, Basil. Thanks for calling in.

Basil: Hi. Thank you so much. First of all, congratulations, and I'm just very happy that you have recovered your health.

Alison Stewart: Thank you.

Basil: Moving quickly to the topic, I haven't mastered the Caesar salad, but I have mastered the quick Caesar. Trader Joe's, they have a salad kit. You get their canned anchovies, but then add scrambled eggs. I promise. I cooked it for so many clients on break. I'm a photographer, and it's so delicious. You have to warm up the skillet. Use coconut oil, minced garlic, and liberal black pepper. Put it on top. It's five minutes. It's so, so good.

Alison Stewart: Thank you.

Pati Jinich: Wait, do you add lettuce to that?

Basil: There's what they call a Caesar kit from Trader Joe's so that has romaine lettuce. It has everything that you need. For me, the secret is to put scrambled eggs on top and make sure that you also add anchovies because that does not come in the kit.

Alison Stewart: Got a love that.

Pati Jinich: These callers blowing my mind.

Alison Stewart: [laughs]

Pati Jinich: Thank you so much.

Alison Stewart: Think about all the things you see on the Internet. You see Caesar salad pizza, Caesar salad sandwiches, Caesar salad pasta, even a Caesar cheeseburger. One, why do you think there are so many renditions of this version of a Caesar salad? Do you have a favorite?

Pati Jinich: Yes, I do. I think there's so many renditions because it is so simple. It's like a very simple white canvas that allows you to play. I mean, you have a very, very simple combination of ingredients that go into the dressing, or as it was old fashioned, made just thrown into the lettuce and mix. You have the pure, cold, crisp lettuce that many people don't appreciate, and it has a flavor of its own, but then it has parmesan cheese, which everybody loves, and crunchy, golden-brown bread in the salad, which everybody loves.

I think the combination of the very, very bold, pungent, intense, flavorful, creamy dressing with a cold, crisp lettuce, and the crunch of the bread is so simple that it allows you to play. It's not a very complicated dish that doesn't allow you to add your own thing. It's just very simple to add the chicken or the salmon or the shrimp, or to add or not the anchovies, or add or not the lemon or lime juice, or skip or not the garlic olive oil and do different kinds of oils, or like our friend who just called, adds the coconut oil.

I think it's just a very simple formula that allows people to play and to make it their own. I really think, Alison, that to me, that is the beauty of cooking and recipes, that they don't belong to us. I mean, you can see with the Caesar Cardini dressing. The patent that everybody claiming at their own. The flip side of that is that food, recipes, dishes that are beloved and heirlooms are here before we get to this Earth and will remain after we're gone. It's these things that are passed on and that connect us through generations and that you have variations.

I think that is the beauty of food that people can say, "I love this so much. I'm bringing it into my home and making it my own." To me, when a viewer or a follower uses one of my recipes and sends me an email and says, "Pati, I made your pasta, but instead of ancho chile, I use Chipotle. And instead of chicken, I put shrimp, and now, we make it every week." I call that a success. Now, that recipe is his. I think that's the power of the Caesar salad, that so many claim it their own.

Alison Stewart: What is the one thing that you put in your Caesar salad dressing, your Caesar salad that gives a little something extra?

Pati Jinich: I have to say I love the Caesar salad dressing that they use now in the Caesar's restaurant. It was Michelin starred, Javier Plascencia, who came up with it, he's pretty brilliant. I love that rendition. I'm obsessed with parmesan cheese and anchovies, so I tend to add much more than the recipe calls for.

Alison Stewart: There is no such thing as much more when it comes to anchovies, in my opinion. My guest has been Pati Jinich. She's a chef and a food journalist. She's been walking us through the Caesar salad, celebrating its centennial this year. Thanks to all our callers who called in and texted us, and thanks, Pati.

Pati Jinich: Thank you, Alison. So good to have you back and so good to talk to you. Thank you for having me today.

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