Robert Howard Cobb, owner of the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant, who is said to have invented the salad as a late-night snack for himself in 1937.
One night in 1937, Bob Cobb, prowled hungrily in his restaurant's kitchen for a snack. He was ruffling through the kitchen’s refrigerator, pulling out various remnants including a head of lettuce, an avocado, some romaine, watercress, tomatoes, some cold breast of chicken, a hard-boiled egg, chives, cheese and some old-fashioned French dressing.
He started chopping. Added some crisp bacon -- swiped from a busy chef. Bob tossed the ingredients together and shared the outcome with his friend Sid Grauman (of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre fame).
Mr. Grauman was so impressed that he asked for a “Cobb salad” at the restaurant the very next day, and a classic was born.
Some people claim that the inventor was the restaurant’s chef Robert Kreis, executive chef at the restaurant, created the salad in 1929, even though the salad got its name after the owner of the restaurant, Robert Cobb.
The modern version of Cobb salad is the changes of dressing. Originally, Mr. Cobb made the salad with a "special French dressing". It was made with red wine vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, dry mustard and garlic. Nowadays, Cobb salad is typically served with blue cheese or ranch dressing.
The Cobb salad was one of the first modern 'main course' salads in the United States. Up until that time (the 1920s and 1930s) most salads were side dishes composed of greens with a simple dressing of salt and vinegar and oil.
History of Cobb Salad
