Dishing up the stories behind the names

What Caesar Did For My Salad tells the stories behind our most popular and often bizarrely titled dishes.

A decade ago Jack was working in Canary Wharf as a marketing manager for Bailey Teswaine.

He became interested in approaching history from a different angle - through popular culture - and wrote his first bestseller Red Herrings And White Elephants, telling the tales behind everyday phrases, in 2003.

This, his seventh book, is in much the same vein.

He said: "It was as much fun for me finding out the stories as writing this book. HP Sauce was one I loved.

"I didn't know it was named after the Houses of Parliament though everyone else seems to know that one."

Jack, who now lives in Cape Town "got lucky" with the research for his book. Celebrity chef and good friend Liam Tomlin is a food history anorak and gave Jack free run of his library of books dating back 200 years.

The author said: "There wasn't a single dish I couldn't find out about, but if there is one gap in my knowledge, it is how certain foods caught on.

"For example, how the sandwich went from the Earl of Sandwich's table to being available in every petrol station and a part of every packed lunch. The same with the Eccles cake."

He finds it hard to pick a favourite from the huge catalogue he has amassed.

"The sandwich is one. I liked the fact the first Earl named himself after the port of Sandwich. If he had chosen a different port we could be eating a ham Bristol today," said Jack.

Albert has stopped telling people what he does for a living because they always have a suggestion for him but that has not stopped him making the most of his new knowledge.

He said: "I've won many a bet on the story behind Welsh rarebit (originally "rabbit" and it's a dig at the poverty of the principality). I like it when I can tell historical stories like with the Cornish pasty and the tin miners."

Housewives made a pasty for family members working in the mines.

Superstitious miners threw away the thick crust and it saved their lives. How? Arsenic was heavily present in the mines and the crust acted as a handle to hold the pasty stopping the poison transferring from hand to mouth.

Jack said: "I can explain how this one spread. When foreign competition put Cornish mines out of business in the late 19th century, workers were forced to emigrate to America, Australia and South Africa and they took their Cornish pasties with them."
What Caesar Did For My Salad is out on September 2, priced £12.99.

Signature dishes

Albert Jack's favourite stories are those that can be traced to a particular person or are the result of mistakes:

Margherita pizza: Named for the queen of a newly unified Italy. In 1889 Margherita (meaning Daisy) visited Naples and pizzeria owner Raffaelle Esposito created a pizza using the colours of the national flag, red tomato, white cheese and green basil, in her honour.

Sandwich: The fourth Earl of Sandwich can take the credit for this meal. A ferocious gambler, in 1762 the Earl was playing cards and decided he needed to eat. He ordered a waiter to bring him a steak but to ensure his greasy hands did not mark the cards and give away his tactics, he requested two slices of bread to hold the meat in.

Pavlova: The darling of the dancing world Anna Pavlova so impressed her New Zealand (not Australian as is the common misconception) audience that a young chef in Wellington created a dessert to demonstrate his affection for the young ballerina. The meringue and cream are said to represent her tutu.

Caesar salad: Nothing to do with Julius rather prohibition in the early decades of the 20th century drove Californians across the border to Mexico. Italian Caesar Cardini emigrated to America and moved to Mexico to cash in on the trend. According to his daughter they were doing so well one evening that they ran out of food and her father threw together a salad from what he could find in the kitchen.