Caesar salad

A Caesar salad is a salad of romaine lettuce and croutons dressed with parmesan cheese, lemon juice, olive oil, egg, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, and black pepper.

It is often prepared tableside.

History

The salad's creation is generally attributed to restaurateur Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who operated restaurants in Mexico and the United States. Cardini was living in San Diego but also working in Tijuana where he avoided the restrictions of Prohibition. His daughter Rosa (1928–2003) recounted that her father invented the dish when a Fourth of July 1924 rush depleted the kitchen's supplies. Cardini made do with what he had, adding the dramatic flair of the table-side tossing "by the chef." A number of Cardini's staff have said that they invented the dish.

Julia Child said that she had eaten a Caesar salad at Cardini's restaurant when she was a child in the 1920s. The first documentation of Caesar salad dates to 1946, when the newspaper columnist Dorothy Kilgallen wrote:

Salad

A salad is a dish consisting of small pieces of food, which may be mixed with a sauce or salad dressing. They are typically served cold. Salads can incorporate a variety of foods including vegetables, fruits, cheese, cooked meat, eggs and grains. Garden salads use a base of leafy greens; they are common enough that the word salad alone often refers specifically to garden salads. Other types include bean salad, tuna salad, fattoush, Greek salad, and somen salad.

The sauce used to flavor a salad is commonly called a salad dressing; well-known types include ranch, Thousand Island, and vinaigrette.

Most salads are served cold, although some, such as south German potato salad, are served warm. Some consider the warmth of a dish a factor that excludes it from the salad category calling the warm mixture a casserole, a sandwich topping or more specifically, name it for the ingredients which comprise it.

Salads may be served at any point during a meal, such as:

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar (Classical Latin: [ˈɡaː.i.ʊs ˈjuː.li.ʊs ˈkae̯.sar]; 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman statesman, general and notable author of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey formed a political alliance that was to dominate Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to amass power through populist tactics were opposed by the conservative ruling class within the Roman Senate, among them Cato the Younger with the frequent support of Cicero. Caesar's victories in the Gallic Wars, completed by 51 BC, extended Rome's territory to the English Channel and the Rhine. Caesar became the first Roman general to cross both when he built a bridge across the Rhine and conducted the first invasion of Britain.

These achievements granted him unmatched military power and threatened to eclipse the standing of Pompey, who had realigned himself with the Senate after the death of Crassus in 53 BC. With the Gallic Wars concluded, the Senate ordered Caesar to step down from his military command and return to Rome. Caesar refused the order, and instead marked his defiance in 49 BC by crossing the Rubicon with a legion, leaving his province and illegally entering Roman Italy under arms.Civil war resulted, and Caesar's victory in the war put him in an unrivaled position of power and influence.

April Bloomfield

April Bloomfield (born 1974), is a British chef best known for holding a Michelin star at two restaurants, The Spotted Pig and The Breslin. She had previously worked at a number of restaurants in the United Kingdom, including The River Café and Bibendum.

Chef Bloomfield is also noted for achieving the highest score of any single challenger in Iron Chef America history, accomplishing the feat during her 56–53 victory over Michael Symon in 2008.

Biography

Bloomfield was born in Birmingham, West Midlands, in 1974. Her father was an engineer, while her mother worked from home for Halcyon Days Ltd, painting bomboniere. She originally wanted to become a police officer, but changed her mind when she discovered that she had missed out on the police cadet scheme. She decided to attend catering college alongside her sister and realised that it was a career she wanted.

Following college, she began working at the Holiday Inn in Birmingham, before moving to London to work first at Kensington Place and then at Bibendum. She moved to work in Northern Ireland but returned to London and after working at a couple of further restaurants, she started working at The River Café after achieving a position there through a friend.