Chicken Caesar Salad A Menu Favorite ‘Round The World

Today I am going to talk about chicken Caesar salad.

I know this is hardly a fascinating topic. Chicken Caesar salad is everywhere. It’s so common it’s already a cliche.

Well, that’s precisely what I want to discuss.

I sometimes think there’s this person sitting in a room in some exotic setting plotting just what the whole world is about to obsess over.

You can’t go into a country anywhere in the world where some menu is not proudly featuring chicken Caesar salad.

Jack Kilpatrick, a Dallas computer executive, was in Turkey a few months ago. The first night, his Turkish hosts took him to a favorite restaurant.

The menu proudly boasted many local specialties.

There were also a few exotic additions.

You guessed it: Chicken Caesar salad was a featured choice.

“I was amazed,” says Jack. “I somehow didn’t expect to see chicken Caesar salad on any menu in this part of the world. I can get that at my local Denny’s back in Dallas.

“I told that to my Turkish hosts. They just smiled broadly. They love chicken Caesar salad. They can’t wait to come to the U.S. and eat at Denny’s.”

I’ve also had people tell me they’ve been offered chicken Caesar salad in Rome, in Paris, in tiny towns in Greece, in major cities in Germany.

Of course, there’s no place in the United States where this offering is not on the menu.

I’m not putting down the selection. I just want to know how such things get to be such a hit everywhere all at once.

There was a time when you went to Memphis for barbecue, Dallas for Tex-Mex, New York for knishes, Philadelphia for cheese-steak sandwiches and Chicago for pizza.

You can still go to Chicago for deep-dish pizza. But you will probably have it offered along with chicken Caesar salad.

Not too long ago, I was in a small town in Mississippi.

I was driving through and had stopped at a tiny cafe for the catfish specialty.

The portion offered was tremendous and I wasn’t going to be stopping anyplace with a refrigerator so I could take fish home for supper.

“Well, if you don’t want that much,” the waitress offered, “you might want to try our chicken Caesar salad. It’s a big favorite.”

I had to laugh. That salad was popping up again.

“Why don’t you offer fried catfish Caesar salad?” I asked. “That sounds delicious.”

The waitress looked at me as if I had ordered arsenic.

“Nobody’s ever heard of that,” she said.

That’s what I’m talking about. Who is the person who clues us in on all the right trends? Who tells us the exact second cilantro is out and fennel is in?

The same person also must have decreed not all that long ago that everyone should plant flowering pear trees.

A few years ago, you rarely saw them. Now they are blooming all over the city. When did this happen? “I don’t know,” says Arlene Levine.

“All I know is about two years ago, we knew we had to have flowering pear trees. I knew it was important. I just can’t remember why.”

The same thing happens with all those lawyer jokes and O.J. Simpson jokes and, now, Pat Buchanan jokes. Within a day, people all over the country are telling the same jokes. No one knows where they came from.

My friend in Georgia called to tell me a new Pat Buchanan joke. I had already heard it earlier in the day from a friend in Texas.

I can’t exactly remember the joke. But I do remember I heard it while eating a chicken Caesar salad.