I don't think that was the point the comment was trying to make. Like - it's easy to stand on a street corner and eat a slice of pizza (or grab one and run!), it's much harder to eat dressed leaves.

I read their point as being: the first time you try pizza you're like "this is delicious and amazing." The first time you try Caesar salad it lights you up in the same magical way.

I could be wrong of course - but that definitely fits my own experience. The first time I had a chicken CS as a kid in a restaurant, it was all I wanted to eat every time we went out for months afterwards. I genuinely couldn't believe 'salad' could be so delicious.

“Europe” is a big place. In my experience Caesar salads are very common in London, in the South of France, in Italy and in Greece.

Maybe not margheritta pizza. But every culture that makes bread has a flatbread with topping and spices popped in the oven dish.

Yeah, I don't think I have eaten a single Caesar Salad in my whole life.

Have one almost every day from Tesco in Prague. Sometimes they sell out before I can get one. Where do you live?

Agreed. The things with "salad" in the name that I've gotten at Mediterranean restaurants have been delicious combinations of multiple ingredients. The things with "salad" in the name that I've gotten at American restaurants have been bowls of lettuce with a few other things thrown in.

Anything with fruit and nuts in it isn't a salad (and is certainly not an American salad).

I make my Caesar with kale and arugula, shave broccoli with a peeler then roast them, and add pine nuts plus roasted garlic lemon chickpeas in addition to croutons for even more and healthier crunch. It’s also delicious with just oil.

This is exactly why I love Cesar salads. I have always disliked vegetables, trying many times in my life to eat them more because that's what health "experts" say we need to do.

I don't like vegetables fresh, I don't like them grilled, I don't like them stewed.

Cover them in Cesar dressing tho and I can eat an extra large salad (hopefully with some protein too).

There are different kinds - the one I make is primarily oil raw egg lemon

I'd think that peoples' main objection to salad is the uncooked veggies, which isn't addressed at all with caesar salad. I don't generally trust raw vegetables to not make me sick. Especially in the US.

> The big uncut leaves are suited for slow nibbling of token amounts of salad.

What does this sentence even mean?

Nachos 'N Cheese! Mmmmmm!

If there is still cheese left in that grinder there's not enough cheese on that salad.

One tube of anchovy paste, one tin of anchovy filets (chopped), fresh pressed garlic, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire, hot sauce, parmesan, black pepper, and olive oil.

Well it is paywalled

Tabasco is an interesting twist I’m going to have to try

Standing up here for iceberg, I think a proper wedge with blue cheese and bacon is delicious. The crispness is refreshing. Not as nutritional as other salads, but sure goes well with a steak and a martini.

Same energy as complaining their pizza and steak isn’t cut for them.

>the dish was originally meant to be eaten with hands

research in our historical archives backs up your claim https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNc4EszNWn8

That is a wild amount of raw garlic to add to a salad.

Anchovies also a fav :)

I was last-week weeks old when I learned the cool America's Test Kitchen trick for vinaigrettes, which is to make them with a combination of extra virgin and neutral oil so they don't set up (and thus break) in the the fridge. Also: a good reason to get a 3-pack of cheap Oxo squeeze bottles; shake to re-emulsify. Vinaigrette is one of the most useful condiments there is.

In a 16oz deli (or a measuring cup):

A yolk, a tsp of dijon, pepper, little salt, juice half a lemon, couple dashes of Worcestershire, couple anchovy filets, half a garlic clove.

Blend homogenous with a stick blender. Then slowly blend in a stream of neutral oil; get it to mayonnaise consistency. Taste and adjust (probably wants pepper). Then: back it out to dressing consistency with water (or lemon juice) a tsp at a time. [†]

Knobs (do any/all/none): grate pecorino or parm, just a bit, into the dressing in the first stage. Double, triple, or quadruple the anchovies. Add some white wine vinegar along with the lemon juice. Microplane the garlic (careful, will really amp the garlic). Before thinning back to dressing consistency with water, add some extra virgin. Pinch of MSG.

If you're being hardcore (ie date night), before you start the dressing, fill a ziploc with ice and put it in your salad bowl, and put your serving bowls in the freezer. Also hardcore: use half as much garlic, and make up the difference with 2x as much garlic confit.

Don't do the thing where you build the dressing on the salad (like, cracking an egg into the bowl or whatever). It's a parlor trick, not a way to dial in the ideal Caesar. Also don't bother with the "rub the garlic into the salad bowl" thing; just makes it harder to dose the garlic.

Extra tip: freshly roasted brussels sprouts love Caesar dressing. (Roasted brussels sprouts love any bright high-fat sauce; Caesar is just the platonic ideal.)

Keeps about a week in the fridge, but each time you use it, refresh the acid (just a splash or lemon juice or vinegar).

(I make a lot of Caesars).

Take a step back and see a Caesar as an anchovy vinaigrette, and then you can immediately vary it to different settings --- lime instead of lemon, add some chile (or aji amarillo), tortilla instead of croutons, fresca instead of parm.

[†] You can also just blend neutral oil in until you get the dressing consistency you want; theoretically you'll get a better texture and a little more flavor concentration this way, but I think the win is marginal vs. being able to knock this dressing out mechanically without thinking hard about it, and you can just dial up the flavors a bit beforehand if you're worried.

This is my go to: https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/caesar-salad-dressing....

The number of people served varies, but a guess is 4: It has 4 pieces of bread, about 80 C (calories) per person. The 1 cup of cheese would be 1/4 C per person, and 1/4 cup of that cheese is enough to be noticed. The 3 heads of Romaine is 3/4 a head per person, and that's plenty for a salad. Could add up to ~300 calories, which is a lot for just part of a meal, just a salad, and not a full meal or even a main dish. So, might follow it with something with a lot of protein, a grilled T-bone steak, grilled/roasted chicken, etc.

But, the dressing yields about 3 cups with 2 cups of oil (plus the oil with the anchovies). The 2 cups is 32 tablespoons at 125 calories per tablespoon, ..., might feed 32 people. In that case, leave the dressing as is and increase the lettuce, bread, and cheese.

What tradition is that though, like when you omit the fish content?

Ive had good salad dressings like this where they actually list worschestchire sauce and then in the parenthetical ingredients to that it doesnt have any anchovy or fish given and also not in the usualy summation of various allergenic food categories. I just worry its hidden in the Natural Flavor bullcrap