A short tour of retro cooking here, which might be just the thing if you’re in search of comfort food. ‘Tis the season for Dungeness crab, our country’s most popular crabmeat. The origins of the recipe for Crab Louie (sometimes Louis) are unclear, although most sources say it came from our West Coast. No surprise there, as California and the Pacific Northwest are the richest sources in the United States for Dungeness. The Olympic Club in Seattle, Wash., claimed provenance beginning in 1904 with a story that the visiting tenor Enrico Caruso ordered it off the menu so often during his tour there that no crab was left in the pantry. Two slightly later origin stories, both dated 1914, place its invention at Solari’s restaurant in San Francisco or by Louis Davenport, owner of the Davenport Hotel in Spokane, Wash. No matter its beginnings, the salad called Crab Louie always is to end up including lettuce, crabmeat, halved hard-cooked eggs, cold poached asparagus spears and tomato, … [Read more...] about Get Cooking: Sauce Louis and chicken divan recipes bring a touch of retro cooking
