Cobb Salad's Origin Story Is As Californian As It Gets

Think California and things that come to mind may include Hollywood and movie stars, but also fresh, local fruits and vegetables — consider that California produces over 75% of the country's fresh fruit and over a third of its vegetables. The fresh produce of the Golden State all played a role in the origin of Cobb salad, a classic American dish that's a meal on its own, bursting with meat, eggs, cheese, and veggies, and whose creation is all California.

The story begins at the legendary Hollywood restaurant The Brown Derby. The original location opened in Los Angeles in 1926, shaped like a brown derby hat, but the second Brown Derby became the most famous. Located just off Hollywood Boulevard near the movie studios, it was a hotspot for film stars and industry bigwigs to eat, mingle, and be seen, and it's where the Cobb salad was born.

According to lore, Brown Derby owner Robert Cobb was at the restaurant late one night in the 1930s and wanted something to eat. He went into the kitchen and made a salad with leftovers from the day: lettuce, tomato, avocado, hard-boiled eggs, bacon, roast chicken, blue cheese, and the Derby's French dressing. He shared it with Sid Grauman, the man behind Grauman's Chinese Theater — where celebrities' handprints and footprints are immortalized in concrete. Grauman liked it so much that he came back the next day and asked for what he called the Cobb Salad. It was put on the menu and quickly took off with the celebrity set. According to another origin story, it was the chef who made the salad and named it after the boss.

A Cobb salad is chopped and composed, meaning the ingredients are cut up and arranged, often in rows. The traditional ingredients provide a balance of tastes and textures: bacon's smoky crispness, the smooth creaminess of avocado and eggs, blue cheese's sharp tang, chicken's meatiness, and the brightness of tomato. But you can also try using other ingredients, in the spirit of the salad's impromptu, see-what-works origins.

Think first about what has to remain for it to still be Cobb salad. Many would say the eggs and bacon; others insist on blue cheese. Then experiment with ingredients that inspire you. Add spicy onions or radishes, cut up carrots or celery for crunch, or swap in sweet corn or red peppers. Switch the blue cheese with another cheese if you're intimidated by the mold. Blend different lettuces, or replace chicken with a different protein like roast beef or shrimp.

The Brown Derby's French dressing was a vinaigrette with mustard, garlic, and Worcestershire sauce. But it's common today for Cobb salad to have a creamier dressing like blue cheese, and you can mix things up with other ones too. A homemade ranch dressing is a fitting choice, with its own California origin story. The buttermilk-based dressing was created by a cowboy on a dude ranch — specifically by Steve Henson, who began serving it to guests at his Santa Barbara ranch in the '50s and eventually sold the recipe for $8 million.