Did Bob Cobb really invent the Cobb Salad?

Question

Supposedly, Bob Cobb invented the Cobb salad while rummaging around the kitchen one night. Being such a simple salad, though, it seems like someone else could have made it before he did. Maybe they called it something different?

Answer 1

I'm sure it's possible, though (as I understand it) Mr. Cobb used ingredients that were on hand that day... someone else might have had at least one or two differing ingredients? Just a thought. Good question, though - thumbs up.

Answer 2

In 1937, Brown Derby owner Robert H. Cobb went into the restaurant's kitchen to fix himself a late night snack. He combed the refrigerator for what ingredients he could find, chopped them up and made himself a salad. Cobb shared the new creation with his friends and it became popular enough to be added to the restaurant's menu.

Answer 3

Hey Now...

1937 - It was the invention of restaurant manager, Bob Cobb, at The Brown Derby restaurant in Los Angeles, found a way to use up leftovers. Cobb had been improvising with the salad for years. The first one was created at the end of a long day, when Cobb realized he had not had time to eat. Wandering over to one of the restaurant iceboxes, a weary Cobb scrounged around to see what he could fix. Cobb's salad might have remained his own little secret had he not made an offhand comment about his new invention to one of Hollywood’s legendary promoters, Sid Grauman, the man responsible for the elaborate, pagoda-like cinema on Hollywood Boulevard that came to be known as Grauman's Chinese Theatre. The salad got Grauman's interest and he asked for one to try. He fell in love with it.

According to Walter P. Scharfe, later president of the Brown Derby Restaurants, and current owner of the Hollywood Brown Derby licensing rights

". . . its origin was quite by accident. One evening the original owner, Robert H. Cobb, went to the icebox and found an avocado, which he chopped with lettuce, celery, tomatoes, and strips of bacon. Later he embellished it with breast of chicken, chives, hard-boiled egg, watercress, and a wedge of Roquefort cheese for dressing, and the salad was on its way to earning an international reputation."

Smiles