The most seductive culinary myths have murky origins, with a revolutionary discovery created by accident, or out of necessity. For the Caesar salad, these classic ingredients are spiced up with a family food feud and a spontaneous recipe invention on the Fourth of July, across the border in Mexico, during Prohibition. Our story is set during the era when America banned the production and sale of alcohol from 1919–1933 .
Two brothers, Caesar (Cesare) and Alex (Alessandro) Cardini, moved to the United States from Italy. Caesar opened a restaurant in California in 1919. In the 1920s , he opened another in the Mexican border town of Tijuana, serving food and liquor to Americans looking to circumvent Prohibition.
Tijuana’s Main Street, packed with saloons, became a popular destination for southern Californians looking for drink. It claimed to have the “ world’s longest bar ” at the Ballena, 215 feet (66 metres) long with ten bartenders and 30 waitresses. The story of the Caesar salad, allegedly 100 years old, is one of a cross-border national holiday Prohibition-era myth, a brotherly battle for the claim to fame and celebrity chef endorsements.
On July 4 1924 , so the story goes, Caesar Cardini was hard at work in the kitchen of his restaurant, Caesar’s Place, packed with holiday crowds from across the border looking to celebrate with food and drink. He was confronted with a chef’s worst nightmare: running out of ingredients in the middle of service. As supplies for .