A friend commented on my blog yesterday about Caesar salad, that her measure of a good restaurant was the standard of their Cobb salad. I’d never heard of it so rushed straight to find out what it was, and I must say it does sound a most delicious combination, and invented – supposedly, in a really homely but creative way – throwing the leftovers in the fridge together!
The ingredients vary slightly from recipe to recipe but what I’ve discovered is that it a combinations – in differing amounts according to the recipe, of: bacon, avocado, chicken, tomato, hard boiled egg, chives, several varieties of lettuce, watercress, a red wine vinaigrette and occasionally onions. That sounds amazing – and of course those ingredients can be arranged beautifully!
As usual, there are several different stories of how the salad was invented, and the date – varying from 1929-1937. Al versions of these stories involve the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant, whose owner was Robert Howard Cobb. It’s all lost in the mists of time as to whether Cobb or his chef, Paul J. Posti actually first put together this classic combination or whether they were indeed “cobbled” together from leftovers! Maybe one Robert Kreis, executive chef at the restaurant, created the salad at the earlier date in 1929, but who now can really tell. Thanks though, to Messrs Cobb, Posti or Kreis!
My featured image is NOT of a Cobb salad but the best ever, ever salad I have eaten in the Jumbo supermarket in the Netherlands!
Lois Elsden 