ONE NIGHT IN 1937, Bob Cobb, the president of the Brown Derby restaurant chain, was rooting around in the restaurant kitchen looking for something to eat. He pulled a random selection of salad greens out of the fridge and added some bacon and a mélange of other ingredients. He tossed it all together with some of the restaurant’s French dressing, and the Cobb salad was born—a colorful tumble of chicken, bacon, avocado, egg, blue cheese, tomato and greens.