When I first returned to my native California from New York City twenty years ago, I wrote a letter to the food editor of this newspaper in which I explained to her in no uncertain terms what exactly a classic Caesar salad was.
The letter was about whether the leaves should be chopped or not. Notes! I insisted. Tap, tap, tap. I corrected the paper with confidence and conviction. The romaine lettuce had to be left whole except for the loose ends which needed to be trimmed off. The fact that the lettuce had to be romaine was a given in my opinion. But that was back then.
Recently, I began to wonder if my attachment to tradition, and romaine in particular, was holding me back.
I asked my friend, chef Jonathan Waxman, also a California native and vegetable lover whose kale salad marked the start of a two-decade trend, whether I should stick with romaine lettuce or use Little Gems, a smaller, closer French cousin.
“They both suck!” he replied. “The new romaine is tasteless and gems are soggy. See if any of the farmers have the old, bitter stuff.” He remembered the “strong, bitter, royal green-blue romaine lettuce” of old, and although I can't remember it exactly, I do remember a time when I picked up a lettuce leaf that was so watery as it should be almost translucent and asked myself: Where did all the flavor go?
“I seriously think it depends on how the lettuce is grown!” Alice Waters replied when I asked her this question. “Bio-regenerative soil gives the salad its flavor. “The industrial salad has neither taste nor nutritional value.”
When I am in my hometown of San Diego, I am fortunate to have access to the beautiful heads of delicious and nutritious romaine varieties that have the deep color and intense flavor that Waxman grew on such regenerative soil grow legendary Chino family farm.
“Commercial growers grow for maximum production and for a specific size,” says Tom Chino. “Not for the taste.” In contrast, the Chinos are experimenting with different varieties, looking not for the ones that last the longest on the shelf, but for varieties like the ones they currently grow — Carlo, Dragoon and Chalupa — that are the best Texture and most yields deliver taste
For those who can't get farm-fresh lettuce varieties like the ones the Chinos grow, there is a solution. Namely: chicory! Chicory refers to a family of winter salads (fortunately, many are now available year-round, although their characteristic bitter taste is not as intense) that includes endive (white and red), frisée (a variety of endive), and radicchio (it are many types), escarole (more commonly enjoyed cooked) and puntarelle (known as the base of an iconic Roman salad, interestingly with a rich anchovy-garlic dressing overdrawn).
At her Italian steakhouse Chi Spacca, Nancy Silverton avoids romaine lettuce; The Spacca Caesar consists of a mound of thinly sliced cauliflower and escarole hearts, tossed in a tangy, emulsified Caesar dressing and garnished with fried Italian parsley leaves and Silverton's signature torn croutons, doused with anchovies, garlic, olive oil and butter. (Mine are based on hers.) This is one of three Caesar salads she serves at her three restaurants in Melrose and Highland; Ironically, the version that comes closest to the classic is called Tri-Colore and consists exclusively of chicory: radicchio, endive and frisée.
At Jar, chef Suzanne Tracht uses Little Gems in her Caesar, but around the time I was typing out this letter, she was making her Caesar with crispy red and white endive stalks. It impressed me because it was so much in the spirit of classic Caesar, even though there was no romaine involved. Not unlike my newest favorite Caesar, which I had last year at Hugo, a wine bar in Mexico City, which consists of whole radicchio leaves coated in Caesar dressing and breadcrumbs and nestled tightly together in a small bowl.
Could a salad with radicchio really be a Caesar? Twenty years ago I would have said no. But I cured my traditionalist flu in my hometown. Today, Caesar is everyone's salad. And what makes a Caesar a Caesar lies solely in the eye of the Creator.
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