How César salad was created on the border between Mexico and the United States (and why it is a symbol of globalization)

- Author, Daniel Pardo Daniel Pardo
- Author's title, BBC World correspondent in Mexico
4 hours

The César salad does not have Chile, corn or avocado: it does not have, gastronomically speaking, much of Mexico.

But it was created in Mexico, in the city of Tijuana, on the border with the United States.

And if he does not reveal much of Mexican culture, he says a lot from the place of Mexico in the world.

“This salad is Austrian, made in Mexico, by Emigrant Italians,” says Livio Santini, sitting at his usual Ceasar's table, the restaurant in the center of Tijuana considered the cradle of which perhaps is the most famous salad in the world.

He asks Paul, his trusted waiter, a salad and a beer, and the comedy waiter hurries in bringing the wooden cart on which he prepares the dish, which consists of Roman lettuce and a sauce of anchovy, garlic, mustard, egg, lemon, English sauce, parmesan cheese and olive oil.

It is his favorite table, because on her is her father's photo, the first Livio Santini, an Italian migrant who arrived in Mexico in 1920 without knowing that on this side of the Atlantic he was going to invent a famous dish of world gastronomy; An icon, rather, of the interconnected world that these days, after the rise of protectionist movements, is under threat.

“Tijuana opened the doors to many people,” says Santini. “

Tijuana, who shares a metropolitan area with San Diego, is the largest city of this border, has the lowest unemployment rate in Mexico and in its short 135 years of existence it has been a key stop of the migratory flow towards the first power in the world. With the balance in wealth, dead and political tension that this implies.

This is a nerve point of the globalized world. And the César salad is perhaps the product that best shows it.

“The salad is a symbol of Tijuana,” Santini adds, “for the migrants who came, they brought their customs and amalgamated them to the customs of Mexico.”

Photo foot, Livio Santini, 77, is an architect. He lives in San Diego, but he goes to Tijuana almost every day. He is a native of a border.

More than a recipe, a symbol

Santini's father is not the only “creator” of the salad: Cesare Cardini, the first owner of this restaurant, is another of the considered authors.

Cardini migrated from Italy to California in the first decade of the twentieth century and, in full prohibition of alcohol consumption, moved to Tijuana to take advantage of the demand for food, drink and fun at the border

On July 4, says this version, his restaurant was left without ingredients, so he had to improvise the recipe for the renowned salad.

There is also the theory that Cesare's brother, a war pilot named Alex, was the one who invented it. Therefore, it was initially known as “the aviator salad.”

But beyond the dispute over authorship, in any case the inventor was a migrant at a border where they combine – even today – the attributes of global cultures: here, today, heitian, African and Venezuelan food is achieved in its purest presentation; Years before there were waves of Central American, Colombian, Chinese influences.

Here, a century ago, he ate good Italian.

Tijuana, Mexico, in the 20s. Illustration. — Photo foot, Tijuana was the center of the commercial and services boom arising from the ban in the 20s. It is, from origin, a “land of opportunities.”

“Many of the things in the world were not planned,” Santini tells me. “My dad did not want to invent the most famous salad in the world, but it was a way of remembering with his mother and his origin. He came to work because he was hungry.”

The Santini never seemed to care about the issue of authorship.

In the 50s, the Cardini patented the recipe, although today there is no patent: there are hundreds of brands worldwide, including Cardini's, with their own version of the CEASA dressing.

In the end, no one could attest to the exact moment in which a person invented the dressing; the moment that a migrant mixed garlic, mustard, egg yolk, Parmesan cheese and olive oil; And he generously sprayed it to a juicy, crunchy and perhaps tasteless lettuce.

According to Livio, “César was always like a father for my dad, welcomed him, and always maintained a cordial relationship of Tijuanense Italians.” Today both, despite not being owners, pose in the biggest photos of the famous restaurant. The waiters, who throw the story every time they prepare it, talk about both of them.

What Livio Santini cares, more than copyright, is the story. What gives you identity as Mexican, Italian and Tijuanense.

Ceasar's en tijuana — Photo foot, Cesare Cardini was the first to have a restaurant chain in Tijuana called *Ceasar's.* His family inherited him, then sold it.

War food

If we stick to its version of the facts, it is curious that the origin of a recipe that today is served in tablecloths by vest and tie waiters has left a state of precariousness.

During World War I (1914-1918), the Santini, originally from northern Italy, migrated to Braunau, Austria. And it was in the midst of the shortage that the mother began to mix the condiments available to create the recipe.

At the end of the war, Livio wanted to migrate, and the quotas in the United States were full. So, as is the case today, he came to Mexico with the idea of eventually crossing the north.

At his first stop, in Jalisco, he realized that they had cheated him, as also happens to migrants today: the tractors, the cattle, the prosperity they had promised did not exist. He was content with a mining work in Nayarit, a state in the north direction.

And it ended in Tijuana, a city that since its origin, in 1889, has been populated by people who stayed on the road. People who, although they did not arrive in the United States, built thrusters of medicine industries and manufactures at the service of the United States.

When Livio arrived, in the 20s, Tijuana was the fate of thousands of thirsty US in full prohibition to the north of the border. He was hired as a cook in Ceasar's.

One day a millionaire, which Livio only knows as “Miss Susan”, heiress of a cane empire in Cuba, he got into the kitchen to choose the piece of meat that was going to give it to his two spoiled dogs.

In those he realized that one of the chefs, Livio, had a container full of sauce where he soaked a lettuce leaf and then take it to his mouth. He asked what it was. He asked him to serve him a ration. And that is, according to the Santini, the origin of the salad.

A war dish, turned into an element of nostalgia, which ends up taking the world; whose authorship is dispute, but has a place in history. The story, nothing less, from the globalized world.