Hunger & History: All Hail Crab Louie!
Crab Louie, also known as the King of Salads, is truly a dish fit for royalty. Much like its other American counterparts like Cobb or Wedge, Crab Louie salad is one of those timeless dishes that is just as stylish and tasty now as it was when first invented.
Crab Louie salad starts with a bed of iceberg lettuce and then gets adorned with hard-boiled egg, fresh crab meat, and a thousand island–like dressing. Today, it is not uncommon to jazz up the salad with additions such as fresh tomato, cucumber, asparagus, and avocado.
There are claims of the salad first being served along the West Coast of America in both Washington and in the San Francisco Bay area during the early 1900s. At the time, Dungeness crab had become wildly popular for restaurants to serve as there was an abundance along the West Coast of the United States, all the way up to Alaska. The transportation of perishable foods and refrigeration technology was also advancing, making Dungeness crab and other specialty foods more accessible all over America. The first recorded recipe for Crab Louie Salad was discovered in the Portland Council of Jewish Women’s Neighborhood Cookbook, published in 1912. It’s also been noted that…
