In many European markets, ranch seasoning is referred to as “American seasoning” and prepackaged, long shelf life seasoning is referred to as “American cool”. Eventually, however, the ubiquity of “ranch-style” toppings led to ranch becoming the go-to for any herbal buttermilk-based dressing, much like any brand of French dressing is called French dressing, and any brand of Thousand Island is called Thousand Island.
Ranch dressing is called ranch because it was made on the ranch of the man who invented it, Steve Henson. The ranch was called Hidden valley, so the name was extended to the iconic brand of ranch dressing. The original ranch was invented in 1949 and was tested by a collection of workers who operated under Henson.
In the late 1980s, “Popular Salad Dressing” began to look like a sauce, and in 1992, “Ranch” overtook Italian dressing as America’s most popular salad dressing. This made ranchos mainstream, and soon ranchos overtook the Italians as the number one salad dressing in the country. In the 1990s, the ranches blew out of control and took on the zeitgeist of the times, surpassing Italian clothing as the nation’s best-selling clothing.
The Spread of Ranch Dressing
In the 1970s, his salad dressing spread to the Midwest but did not become nationwide until Doritos introduced Cool Ranch Doritos in 1986. The final push came from Doritos, which released Cool Ranch Doritos in 1986 through the late 1980s. , the ranch craze began. With the packing, the ranch began to take over the nation, moving from the West to the Midwest and taking over the salads in the 1970s; a stable shelf version appeared on supermarket shelves in 1983.
Hensons sold the Clorox brand for $8 million in 1972, boosting the ranch’s profile—and soon Kraft Foods and General Foods were making similar products. The Hansen family sold the ranch in the early 1970s, and in 1973 Thayer’s Kenneth Hansen sold Clorox-branded dressings and products for $8 million. Clorox sold for $8 million.
While Henson hoped to make a fortune from the ranch, one ranch outgrew the property on which he started the company. This simple combination saved Henson and his dying savings after he finally launched his dream ranch in 1954 near Santa Barbara, California.
In 1954, he and his wife Gail moved to California and bought a run-down estate called Sweetwater Ranch on the San Marcos Pass above Santa Barbara, California. -acre sprawled, so he sold 54 acres to keep his head above water.
The Public Origins of Hidden Valley
The buttermilk dressing recipe became a homemade dressing at the Hidden Valley Ranch, a ranch of friends that the Hensons bought near Santa Barbara, California in 1954 in Santa Barbara, California. His buttermilk sauce recipe soon became a ranch staple, and the Hensons soon began selling it to guests and local supermarkets.
According to the Omaha World-Herald, the demand for Henson’s buttermilk dressing has become so great that they have created a packaged dry mix that home cooks can simply add buttermilk to. They started getting so many requests for more ranch dressing—more than ranch orders—that Gale and Henson created a packaged dry mix. Clorox has started adding buttermilk flavors to dry mixes so that customers can use regular milk instead of buttermilk to make ranch flavors.
The couple also made a new type of sauce available as a dry topping that customers could take home and mix with buttermilk and mayonnaise. Around this time, Hidden Valley Ranch began selling Ranch dressing both ready-made and as a powder to mix with buttermilk and mayonnaise. Kenneth Henson of Thayer invented the popular salad dressing. In its purest form, Ranch dressing is made up of buttermilk, salt, garlic, onions, herbs and spices, although the products sold in stores and served at chain restaurants contain ingredients such as sugar, vegetable oil and hard-to-pronounce chemicals.
An Overview of Ranch Dressing
Ranch dressing is an American salad dressing usually made with buttermilk, salt, garlic, onion, mustard, herbs (typically onion, parsley, and dill) and spices (typically pepper, paprika, and ground mustard seeds) mixed into a dressing based on mayonnaise. or other oil emulsion. Ranch dressing balances the taste of buttermilk with the weight of mayonnaise, some herbs and a generous balance of salt and is uniquely American.
This is a thicker dressing (even with a modification of buttermilk) perfect for sauces but also goes well with salads that stick well to the salad and don’t build up unnecessarily at the bottom of the bowl. I also have a sauce I make at home that mimics all the high notes of ranch but also resembles green goddess sauce (health you know).
While creating the menu for Ranch Kitchen, Thayer came up with a new salad dressing. It was in Alaska that Henson invented a new type of sauce, a concoction of mayonnaise, buttermilk, and dried herbs that added flavor to the mostly bland field foods he stuck to. Owner Steve Hansen started making clothes for his team while working in Alaska and later brought them to the ranch, where they were popular with guests. According to the Omaha World-Herald, Kenneth Hansen of Thayer, Nebraska, invented everyone’s favorite velvet salad dressing.
