Deborah Lipp

A Caesar Salad, in its original form, has

The whole mess is prepared fresh in a wooden bowl that has been rubbed with raw garlic cloves.

We used to make a vegetarian Caesar Salad that substituted fresh-crumbled blue cheese for anchovies. It was a good substitution, because the blue cheese had much of the tang and saltiness of the anchovies, and flavored the bowl in the same way. A big salad of this sort was a main course in our family.

Not long ago, really less than ten years, before “Caesar Salad” was on every menu everywhere, it was a specialty. And if you went to a restaurant and found it on the menu, they’d ask you if you wanted anchovies** when you ordered.

It’s not that I object to it being On. Every. Menu. Everywhere. It’s just that I haven’t seen a real Caesar Salad anywhere in more than 15 years. Okay, I get that raw or coddled eggs cannot be legally served. (’cause of the salmonella. ’cause of the antibiotic-laden chicken feed. But I digress.) But even given a viable substitution (like an eggy mayonnaise) is there even such a thing anymore as an authentic Caesar recipe? I mean, isn’t “Caesar salad” now some kind of euphemism for “any salad with croutons and Parmesan cheese and probably no tomatoes or carrots”? Last night I ate dinner at Wendy’s (so sue me) and it had bacon bits. Bacon bits? Bacon bits? My outrage is boundless. Okay, it’s bounded. But it’s there.

Caesar salad is a term that anyone uses to mean anything. So ordering it doesn’t tell you what you’re getting. On a similar note, a “bagel” is a boiled, not baked, bread product. But you’ve probably never tasted one unless you live in Brooklyn. You’ve probably only had fake bagels that are baked. They’re kind of tasty, but they’re not bagels. And nobody knows, and nobody cares.

Come to think of it, doesn’t this apply to Wicca these days? There’s a core meaning of “Wicca” that was accepted for many years, until the notion of Eclectic Wicca came along. It’s not a matter of Eclecticism being an illegitimate way of practicing religion, not at all! It’s a matter of using language authentically, so things mean what they mean. So that Caesar Salad has eggs, and bagels are boiled, and Wicca is an initiatory Mystery religion.

Okay, I accept that language changes. In Wicca, there is a real and growing movement of Eclecticism. And as I often say, Modifiers Are Our Friends™. “Eclectic Wicca” is the new thing, “Traditional Wicca” is what we used to call “Wicca,” and everyone is happy, and language plods on.

But the modifier thing isn’t working, because there’s a huge voice within Paganism that not only believes “anything goes” (wasn’t Kate Capshaw cute singing that? But Temple of Doom is an evil movie. But I digress) but resents the very notion of defining terms to mean something. “Pagan/Wicca/Witch/Goddess must mean whatever I say it means and how dare you say otherwise!” So you have self-contradictory amalgams like “Christian Wicca” (shudder) and “Wiccans” who don’t cast circles or call quarters or worship deities, and people who do all those things but “aren’t Wiccan” because they don’t like the Wiccans they’ve met and don’t want to be associated with them.

They’re all a bunch of Caesar salads with vinegar dressing and chopped walnuts as far as I can see.

*A coddled egg is cooked for one minute at low temperature
**Because some people don’t like anchovies, I guess. Fancy that.