Caesar’s Conquests

I was flooded with nostalgia when reading Joy Garcia’s letter concerning Caesar salads (“Caesar Came, Saw, Conquered and Left,” May 6). In 1935 I dined with my soon-to-be husband at Tijuana’s Caesar Hotel. On a two-tiered cart arranged with salad bowl and necessary ingredients, Chef Caesar tossed and splashed for us, garbed in his handsome tan double-breasted gabardine. Spots? Just a few--we loved the show and the salad too!

FLORENCE BROWNRIDGE NALLE

Santa Ana

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Joy Garcia laments the flatness of Caesar salads these days (like the tomatoes currently in the markets). She relates, as I do, to the ceremony of the fully dressed waiters coming to the table with a formidable production--bowls, cruets, side dishes and the coddled egg! After the combining of all the ingredients, the piece de resistance was deftly cracked and added with a wave of the hands. Then the mixing began, both hands tossing until the blend was completed. Ecstasy!

We have a 1964 edition of “Joy of Cooking” whose recipe calls for a coddled or raw egg. We have just received the latest edition of the “Joy of Cooking” in which there is a whole page concerning the care of eggs relating to age for spoilage and a caution about the risk of salmonella.

Today, what restaurant would dare serve a raw egg, no less a coddled one that might be underdone? And today what restaurant has time to follow the traditional procedure at the table? Everything is prepared in the kitchen and dropped on the table to meet the schedule of the oncoming entree.

So, Joy, you and I can find a true Caesar salad only in our own kitchens, having taken all the proper precautions, and don’t forget the anchovies as the current servers do.

WALTER H. KADLEC

Irvine