The Cobb salad — a composed salad of chopped greens, chicken breast, bacon, hard-boiled egg, avocado, tomato, blue cheese, and chives, dressed with a red wine vinaigrette — was created at the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant in 1937, reportedly by owner Robert Cobb who assembled it from leftovers in the restaurant's kitchen after hours. The salad's genius is its composition: each ingredient is arranged in its own stripe or section across the plate (or mixed together by the diner), creating a salad that is both visual and functional — every forkful can be different depending on where you dig in. The Cobb salad is the prototype of the American "main course salad" — substantial enough to be a meal, composed enough to be a dish.
A large, flat plate or bowl with finely chopped ingredients arranged in parallel rows: romaine and iceberg lettuce (mixed), diced cooked chicken breast, crumbled crispy bacon, diced hard-boiled egg, diced ripe avocado, diced tomato, crumbled blue cheese (Roquefort is traditional), and chopped chives or green onion. The dressing — a classic red wine vinaigrette (red wine vinegar, olive oil, Dijon mustard, garlic, salt, pepper) — is served on the side or drizzled over the composed rows.
1) Every ingredient is diced or chopped to a uniform small size — the consistency allows each forkful to contain multiple elements. 2) The composition: the rows are arranged for visual contrast — green (avocado, lettuce), white (egg, chicken), red (tomato), brown (bacon), blue (cheese). 3) The vinaigrette must be tart and assertive — it binds the disparate ingredients. A mild dressing loses the salad.
The Cobb salad is the template for every "chopped salad" that followed. Its innovation was treating a salad as a composed plate rather than a bowl of dressed greens. The Brown Derby closed in 1985; the salad is its most durable legacy.
James Beard — American Cookery