From the Archives:
The Shame of the Chicken Ceasar
Originally posted, 8/13/07 (alas, I have yet to rid America of this tragedy):
Does anyone know who first put cooked chicken breast on a Caesar salad and called it a Chicken Caesar? I wish I did. I’ve been upset about this at least for two years now because I remember railing to Todd English and Ming Tsai about it as we traveled together for an erstwhile cooking show. “The Chicken Caesar is an emblem of the mediocrity of American cuisine!” I would cry. Ming would chuckle and turn up the volume on his iPod, and Todd more or less ignored me as a run-of-the-mill crank screaming into the nor’easter of American food culture.
via blog.ruhlman.com
Michael Ruhlman is a wonderful writer and of course we're interested in what he writes about: food, food preparation, food production, food culture. HOWEVER. He has this fake-Hemingway manner where he makes a universal pronouncement and then gets pretty insulting towards people who disagree with him. We hate that.
We also hate his habit of retweeting every even slightly complimentary tweet that comes his way. ("Ruhlman: Thanks a million! RT @johnsmith: Ruhlman isn't the worst writer on earth.")
Now this demonization of Chicken Caesar, a salad which he can't even spell right. Ruhlman, Ruhlman, we aren't all from Cleveland and we don't all have a desperate desire to make every meal a validation of our Food Snob credentials. Or, to put it another way, so who told you to order it? And, btw, have you ever tried a homemade Caesar salad with grilled shrimp? Oh, maybe you don't like that either. Well, how important are your opinions. really?
