Ranch Nation

[niftich]

In 1957 Procter & Gamble bought Clorox Chemical Company, which at the time made only bleach. The Federal Trade Commission challenged the merger on anticompetitive grounds -- specifically, that ownership by dominant conglomerate that makes soap, detergent, and cleaners, and spends enormous amounts on advertising, would dissuade other entrants to the liquid bleach market, a chemically bland product whose marketshare nonetheless appeared to correlate with advertising -- and ordered them to divest Clorox. A prolonged court battle ensued, eventually decided by the Supreme Court in 1967 [1], which held that they indeed must divest.

The new, but still Oakland-based Clorox then embarked on a plan to be a little brother to P&G, acquiring a diverse array of marketable brands -- many cleaners, but also Hidden Valley Ranch in 1972, at the time still a hometown California phenomenon, and still a dry packet of mix to which consumers had to add buttermilk to make [2].

Clorox first reformulated the dry mix such that it could be made with milk, then in 1983 they began selling a premade, shelf-stable bottle of it [2], which was instrumental in helping it attain the popularity it has today.

Clorox has a very approachable blog entry [3] about Hidden Valley Ranch, where Curtis Stettler, a former longtime product developers for KC Masterpiece and Hidden Valley, recounts the history of the product line from pre-acquision to today, covering some wacky 90s flavors along the way, and insider comments that recount flavors surviving decades of branding renames, and frustrations with bacon bits trying to poke through the packaging.

[1] https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/386/568.html [2] http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/number_1/2005/08/ranch_dr... [3] https://www.thecloroxcompany.com/blog/this-day-in-clorox-his...

[chris_mc]

>then in 1983 they began selling a premade, shelf-stable bottle of it

I was born in '83 and I still remember my mom mixing ranch dressing by hand in a special ranch dressing mixing bottle [0] that they sold. I always wondered why she mixed it by hand back then.

[0] (image of bottle a few screens down): https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-ranch-dressing-served-at-re...

[rdtsc]

> Ranch is most popular in the Midwest, according to the Association of Dressings and Sauces.

I believe that. I've seen it brought to the table there in Mexican restaurants alongside free salsa without even asking. They just assume you'd want it. At first I thought "Oh free queso, great", but no, just ranch.

> Valley Ranch is no more. Steve Henson sold the brand to the Clorox company in 1972 for $8 million;

There is something ironic about what used to be chemical company known for selling bleach (at that time) to owning the most iconic American ranch dressing.

[vram22]

Let's have more food-related threads on HN now and then, people :)

I have been wishing there were more of those here for some time. They can be pretty interesting, not just to read but to try out the stuff. I remember one of the earliest ones I saw here, titled something like "What are your food hacks?" [1]. It was a good one. IIRC, PG also chipped in with a recipe for rice and beans for ramen-profitable (or yet to be that) startups. The punch line was "put <the stuff> in the cooker and forget about it" :)

- where <stuff> was rice and beans, and some condiments, like salt, oil, pepper, whatever.

[1] Probably can still find that one via hn.algolia.com or the search box at the bottom of the HN page (which uses algolia).

[bovermyer]

Ranch is a gateway.

If you really want an eye-opening flavor experience, try dipping pizza in toum (Lebanese garlic sauce).

[pizza]

Toum + olive oil + a little salt is also great for marinating grilled chicken in. Thanks because TIL its name!

[dfee]

My experience as an American with NE European heritage is that any “food” of the Mediterranean is amazing.

[mturmon]

Toum is familiar in southern CA as the garlic sauce given out at Zankou chicken.

[alexkavon]

Tuom is excellent. Also great on fries and falafel of course.

[inferiorhuman]

> If you really want an eye-opening flavor experience, try dipping pizza in toum (Lebanese garlic sauce).

For more fun, try Lebanese pizza a la Manoosh in New South Wales.

[elipsey]

Working in kitchens when I was younger really put me off of mayonnaise and salad oil, especially cleaning the deep fryers. I used to mix up batches of ranch starting with 5 gallon buckets of "heavy duty" grade commercial mayonnaise. Large amounts of mayonnaise still make me wince a little...

When you work with these in industrial quantities, they inevitably ruin your clothes and insinuate themselves into your person.

There's nothing like coming home reeking of fryer smoke and mayo for a couple of months to make you want to trade the fries for a house salad -- vinaigrette on the side please.

[dsfyu404ed]

I worked in kitchens all through high school and college. I never minded the industrial food service stuff. I still have 5gal buckets that I use for things. Everything that comes out of them smells like pickles (these buckets are years old). I had a coworker who alleged that her boyfriend could taste whether she was serving on Buffalo chicken day a day later. The pay in tech is so much better that it's not even comparable but I kind of miss working in food service. Knowing how fun it isn't to stand over a grill ruined all the "we cook everything in front of you" type restaurants for me though.

[dmschulman]

I worked at a haunted house one summer/fall and the experience completely turned me off to ketchup for about 4 years.

[empath75]

We very nearly had a ranch fountain at our wedding but decided against it...

[d--b]

As a European I don't understand this. Here, salad is merely consumed as an "oil delivery device", it's all about the dressing. So, accordingly, not one bit of salad should remain dry. Ranch is thick, therefore annoying to use on salad, because it doesn't drench the whole thing. Unless you shake the salad, you'll have plenty of dry leaves. ewwww.

Pretty good with fries though.

[adlpz]

This is a generalization. As an European too, there's plenty of places here where it's common to just have some salt and oil and the protagonists are very much the different vegetables (and other stuff!) you put in the salad.

Same for vinaigrettes and all sorts of dressings. I actually think salads drenched in greasy stuff are a bit too much.

[tptacek]

Seriously, though, Caesar salad aside: there's a reason to make "creamy" (emulsified) dressings: most lettuce leaves are hydrophobic. If the only flavor you want is that of oil and salt, that's fine, but most of your culinary acid options are water-based. Getting flavors to stick to leaves is as tricky as getting them to stick to pasta --- meaning, deceptively tricky. "Thick" dressings were invented for a reason.

[dragonwriter]

> As a European I don't understand this. Here, salad is merely consumed as an "oil delivery device", it's all about the dressing.

Thick dressings are ideal for that, as they maximize the deliverable dressing per unit of vegetable matter.

> Ranch is thick, therefore annoying to use on salad, because it doesn't drench the whole thing. Unless you shake the salad, you'll have plenty of dry leaves.

If you don't toss a dressed salad you either have dry leaves or a pool of dressing (possibly both) depending on quantity and viscosity of dressing applied.

[dekhn]

In general, one must toss a salad to get good dressing distribution when the dressing is viscous.

Also, having lived in California for a while, I've grown to like eating greens like frisee without any dressing at all.

[amyjess]

TBH, I love ranch but never eat it on salad.

I like using ranch as a dip for nachos. It goes especially well with the chips that the toppings somehow miss, and it still goes pretty well with the chips that are loaded with toppings.

I've also found that it works very well with bread (the kind of bread that's served with dinner, not sandwich bread). I discovered this not too long ago, because my company likes to cater executive and sales meetings and then after the meeting, they put out the leftovers for the rest of the company to enjoy (this is famous within the company, and the phrase "the [Company-Name] 15" gets mentioned a lot... I've even seen it pop up in our Glassdoor reviews). Sometimes, these leftovers include dinner rolls or pieces of Italian bread, and sometimes they include salad with a bowl of ranch on the side. If I'm lucky, sometimes they'll include both. You see, I like bread, but it can get dry by itself... and I like ranch, but I don't like salad. So one day I decided to combine the best parts of them. I took some of the bread, cut the pieces in half, and started spooning ranch over them. I liked it so much that I've kept doing it every time both get brought out. The ranch works best with Italian bread with thick crusts, because it helps soften them a bit, but it's fine with dinner rolls too.

Ranch as a dip for pizza is also pretty popular, but when I have a choice I'll use clarified garlic butter instead.

[scott_s]

I use a small amount of dressing, but I also want it on the whole salad. So I spent time mixing it. Shaking would be ideal, but I don't have a container, just a bowl, so mixing has to do. It takes a minute, but it's not hard.

As an aside, I use way less dressing than I did as a kid, and less than most people I see. Now, veggies drowning in dressing grosses me out. I just want a little bit of the flavor on the veggies.

[bovermyer]

Interesting perspective on salad.

However, ranch has long transcended salad. The article goes pretty into depth on the varieties of things it's used with.

[lghh]

I actually can't stand non-oil dressings on salad, but eat ranch on literally anything that has the potential to be greasy.

[tptacek]

Explain, then, the Caesar salad, king of all salads.

[tptacek]

"and the pasta sauce “Alfredo” served at places like Olive Garden"

Shots fired!

[gascan]

I looked it up, and I guess I have to say I'm impressed it's not been reformulated into a mix of corn & soy product.

[crispyambulance]

It is popular in rural PA as well, literally the #1 condiment.

For the non-American's out there "Ranch" is basically an oily, less flavorful version of Tzatziki, where the white stuff is based on mayonnaise rather than greek yogurt.

[djur]

I would say the defining quality of ranch is that it contains buttermilk, unlike most mayonnaise-based dressings.

[ryanianian]

I wouldn't consider ranch to be oily. Maybe _fattier_ if it's made from sour cream and buttermilk, but if it's oily it's probably not well-mixed or in the right ratio.

Or go for "Greek-American Fusion": My favorite "ranch" is the dried hidden-valley ranch packets mixed with greek yogurt. Sometimes throw in some cucumbers and garilc from the food-processor. Excellent on spicy gyro meat, salads, pizza, basically everything.

[NikolaeVarius]

I heavily disagree with the less flavorful.Tzatziki is great but it was never meant to be a flavor bomb like ranch

[jjtheblunt]

ranch isn't based on mayonnaise in general; in fact i've not seen it like that.

[tptacek]

Ranch is classically buttermilk and sour cream (part of a whole family of buttermilk dressings) and not mayonnaise.

[rayiner]

Ranch >> Tzatziki.

[moron4hire]

I grew up in rural PA and ranch was not "literally the #1 condiment". There is an urban anti-ranch sentiment that sees it as too provincial to be cool. Once you subtract that sentiment, rural PA does not eat more ranch dressing than the rest of the country.

[0x8BADF00D]

Legalize ranch

[jzymbaluk]

This article's got me jonesing for some Ranch now

[nix0n]

It is wrong to eat chicken wings with ranch: they can be eaten undipped or with blue cheese dressing.

[balt_s]

In the decades to come, men will look back on articles such as this and curse the existence of we moderns for our extravagant wastefulness.

[tptacek]

I love the idea that where we went too far was in adding herbs to our sour cream lightened with buttermilk. We've all flown too high on borrowed wings!

[unit91]

Doubtful. Historically, spice trade has played a major role in nation-building. Still does.

One example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spice_trade

[Sargos]

In the future we will have even more abundant resources so I'm not sure they care that we like to invent good dipping sauces.

[emaginniss]

I bet you're fun at parties.