Who invented the Caesar Salad?

There are many claims as to who invented Caesar salad.

Caesar (Cesare) Cardini Caesar was born near Lago Maggiore, Italy, in 1896; he and his brother Alex emigrated to the U.S. after World War I. The Cardini's lived in San Diego but operated a restaurant in Tijuana to circumvent Prohibition. 

According to Caesar's daughter Rosa, on July 4th 1924 the salad was created on a busy weekend at Caesar's Restaurant. It is said that Caesar was short of supplies and didn't want to disappoint the customers so he concocted this salad with what was on hand. To add a flair to this he prepared it at the table. This story is not certifiable however but it very well could have happened. I can vouch for the fact that this happens frequently in the restaurant business. The salad soon became a hit and people came to the restaurant just to get the salad. In particular the Hollywood set loved Caesars

Some of Caesar's friends and family dispute this claim.

Paul Maggiora, a partner of the Cardini's, claimed to have tossed the first Caesar's salad in 1927 for American airmen from San Diego and called it "Aviator's Salad. Caesar's brother Alex had claimed to have developed the salad (he too allegedly called it "aviator's salad"). Livio Santini claimed he made the salad from a recipe of his mother, in the kitchen of Caesar's restaurant when he was 18 years old, in 1925, and that Caesar took the recipe from him.

The original name was the Aviator's Salad. Alex Cardini, my grandfather, was a pilot for the Italian Air Force during World War I before he moved to Tijuana to join my great-uncle Caesar. 

Remember, it was Prohibition, and Tijuana was where people went to party. Caesar's Place, my great-uncle's bar and restaurant, was very popular. After a long night of drinking and missing curfew, a group of Rockwell Field Air Force pilots woke up at Caesar's, and what Alex made for them for breakfast that morning is what we know today as Caesar Salad. That day he called it the Aviator's Salad in honor of his flying buddies, but as the salad gained popularity with visitors from Southern California it evolved into the Caesar Salad. “Let's go to Caesar's and have that salad …”

Subsequently, when Alex Cardini moved to Mexico City, where he opened three restaurants, the salad was listed on his menu as "the original Alex Cardini Caesar salad."

sumber dari: kitchenproject.com