A Discourse on Ranch
Letâs begin with language. The English words salad and sauce both come from the same Latin root, the word sal meaning âsaltâ. In Latin, salsa means âsaltyâ and salata means âsaltedâ. Later, in Latin, âsalsaâ became the word for a liquid or semi-liquid food, containing salt, which is used to bring flavor to other foods. The famous garum salty fish sauce of the ancient Romans is a perfect, early example of the concept. âSalsaâ entered some Latin-based languages intact (in Italian and Spanish). A different Roman dish, herba salata or âsalted greensâ, became the French abbreviation herbes salade  and then just salade in roughly the 14th century. At about the same time in the same place, the French converted the Latin word salsa into a new French word, sauce. The point here is that salads and sauces are closely related, and come to us via the Roman Empire and particularly the French part of it. And, if you think of it, the âdressingâ you put on a salad is really a sauce; it only becomes called âdressingâ in English when you put it on a salad. Here, we will use âdressingâ and âsauceâ more or less interchangeably. But more on that later. Salads have varied in popularity over the years. At some points in history, raw salads were seen as dangerous as they still are in places where water is unsafe or raw manure is used to fertilize fields. Cooking vegetables neutralizes dangerous bacteria, after all. At other times, however, the virtues of raw-vegetable salads- especially ones based on lettuce leaves- were celebrated for being healthful and enjoyable.
"Lettuce" from the Tacunium Sanitatis, ca. 1450 One can find references to salads- accompanied with a sauce to âdressâ them- throughout the culinary history of Italy, France, and even England. A memorable example comes to us from the English gentleman John Evelyn, who in 1699 composed the book âAcetaria: A Discourse on Salletsâ, a complete guide to growing, preparing, and eatingâŚ. salads. Evelyn was a true salad enthusiast and passionate advocate for the healthfulness and flavor of salads, and prepared detailed notes on which plants were well-suited for cultivation and consumption. He only describes a single sauce for dressing salads, however, which he calls by the ancient Greek word oxoleon meaning âoil and vinegarâ. Evelynâs recipe includes olive oil, vinegar or citrus juice, salt, mustard, horseradish, grains of paradise (a kind of gingery pepper), and beaten eggs. This would serve as a delicious dressing even today. We can therefore think of the oil-and-vinegar mixture as the classical salad sauce, which contains four fundamental elements:
Classical Salad Dressing Formula
Something fatty (olive oil)
Something sour (vinegar)
Something salty (salt)
Something spicy (pepper, mustard, etc). Today, this formula is seen by Italians and French as the fundamental salad dressing: I once had an Italian teacher who would say âOlio, aceto, sale, pepe, e BASTA!â (âoil, vinegar, salt, pepper and DONE!!â) However, from very early times, cooks started finding ways to use other ingredients in salad sauces, either to add complexity or to substitute for the four classic ingredients above. Enter Mayonnaise
In deep history, Mediterranean cooks- probably from Spain or France- noticed that oil could be made creamy by mixing in an emulsifying ingredient: crushed garlic beaten with oil makes aioli, for example. By using various emulsifiers like egg yolk, ground mustard seeds, and even mashed potato, cooks began to emulsify oils into creamy sauces. One example of this is the French remoulade. By the 18th century, the habit of making emulsified sauces grew and mayonnaise- possibly named after the Spanish port city of MahĂłn- came into culinary fashion. Mayonnaise was made with oil, salt, spices like mustard and a touch of vinegar- the same basic ingredients as a vinaigrette salad dressing- and so it very naturally came to be seen as sort of a creamy version of a salad sauce. Egg yolk- a powerful emulsifier- began to be used often. Mayonnaise was used as a salad dressing for hundreds of years- indeed in the UK âSalad Creamâ is a kind of mayonnaise and in the US the mayo-like Miracle Whip is marketed as âsalad dressingâ. In short, about 200 years ago, Europeans started using mayonnaise as a salad dressing, and using it often. Mayonnaise makes sense as a salad dressing all by itself, since it contains all of the elements of the Classical Salad Dressing formula, just emulsified together. One could also mix other elements with mayonnaise- like extra vinegar or spices- to make more complex salad dressings. The Milk-Eaters There is a great traditional divide in European cuisine between those who rely on milk products for fat and those who rely on olive oil for fat. This is often known as the âbutter-olive oil divideâ. Since olives thrive in the warmer climes of the Mediterranean countries, these are the âoil eatersâ. Since cooler climes favor animal husbandry and make keeping milk easier, these are the âmilk eatersâ, who use butter, cream, and milk for their fat. It didnât take long for the classic salad sauce dressing to encounter the oil/milk divide, and soon northern salad makers began to substitute milk or cream for the oil or mayonnaise in their salad dressings. In their 1878 cookbook âWholesome Foodâ, Dr. and Mrs. Edmund Saul Dixon of London include a recipe for âSalad Mixture Bâ, an alternative to oil and vinegar (which was, of course, Salad Mixture A). They said Mixture B- a salad dressing based on cream, vinegar, salt and pepper, was âFor those who are prejudiced against the very name of oil, often because they never tasted it; or, possibly, tasted it without knowing what it was.â Dairy-based salad dressings became popular in the northern European countries, especially Germany, Scandinavia, and England, and among immigrants from those countries to the US. In 1898, the âHome Queen Cook Bookâ contains 34 recipes for salad dressings, 25 of which contain dairy. Creamy dressings- white, emulsified salad sauces- became the norm in the United States, especially in rural areas where dairy was plentiful but oil was rare. The classic creamy salad dressing- sometimes boiled for thickness- followed the following formula, an adaptation of the classical salad dressing formula: Creamy Salad Dressing Formula
Something fatty (cream, milk, or butter)
Something sour (vinegar)
Something salty (salt)
Something spicy (pepper, mustard, onions)
Enter Buttermilk Every milk-eating culture has its fermented milk foods; sour cream, cultured butter, yogurt, etc. In these foods, bacterial action creates sourness, which extend shelf life and add unique tart flavors. Throughout Europe and among Northern European immigrants to the US, people used sour milk products in recipes, and eventually realized a soured milk product could be used to bring tartness to salad sauces instead of vinegar. This meant it was possible to use milk products for either or both the the âsomething fattyâ and the âsomething sourâ in the classic salad dressing recipe, and indeed this is exactly what people started to do. A great example is the German and American âBoiled Dressingâ which uses cream, vinegar, salt and pepper, and was seen as an alternative to mayonnaise as a salad sauce. Boiled dressing was extremely popular in the 19th century and was used on a variety of salads both raw and cooked. Sour cream became a popular choice too, since it had the benefit of being both fatty and sour at once. And, finally, buttermilk: this sour-tasting byproduct of butter-making was perfect for salad dressings: it was tart, cheap, and nutritious. Buttermilk dressing became very popular, particularly in small towns in the American West and Midwest, and is represented in dozens of cookbooks from the late 19th and early 20th century. Here is a representative recipe from an Idaho Farm Bulletin in 1927: Buttermilk Dressing for Salads ½ pint thick buttermilkÂź pint mayonnaise dressing
Juice of ½ small onion
½ tsp. lemon juice
ž tsp. salt
Âź tsp. mustard
â tsp. paprika
â tsp. white pepper
Fold all the ingredients into the unbeaten buttermilk.
You can see that this is just an combination of the Classical and Creamy salad dressing formulas, combining elements of both into a third salad dressing category: Buttermilk Salad Dressing Formula
Something fatty (mayonnaise)
Something sour (buttermilk)
Something salty (salt)
Something spicy (mustard, pepper, onions, herbs)
Since creamy dressings were already very popular, especially in the rural US, buttermilk dressings became popular too; they werenât all that different from traditional cream dressings, but included soured milk, which was seen as thrifty and healthy. Now, if I were to make the buttermilk dressing above for you today, you would call it âranchâ. It is identical to many modern ranch dressings. But it wasnât "ranch" yet. âRanch dressingâ had yet to be invented. Hereâs how it happened. The âInventionâ of Ranch Dressing
The creation story youâll find about ranch dressing centers around Steve Henson, a Nebraska native who moved to Alaska in 1949 as a plumbing contractor. As the story goes, Steve would cook for his plumbing crews, and they became fond of a salad dressing he made. Hensonâs success as a contractor led to an early retirement in California, where he and his wife founded the Hidden Valley Ranch, a guest ranch with a restaurant on the San Marcos pass near Santa Barbara. There, Hudson and his wife hosted legendary parties and dinners, which featured his secret invented-in-Alaska dressing, delicious steaks, and storytelling from Steve Hudson himself. Now, the question is, what was that dressing? Though the âHidden Valley Ranchâ dressing recipe has always been kept secret, former employees have said the original version of the sauce contained buttermilk, mayonnaise, onions, garlic, salt, pepper, and herbs. This recipe is clearly an example of the well-established buttermilk dressing formula above. Itâs at this point we should mention that Steve Henson had what at least one of his friends, Allen Barker, called an âartistic truth... in the sense thatâŚSteve told you what you wanted to hear.â In other words, Steve was a storyteller, a raconteur, and an embellisher of tales. The Hidden Valley Ranch wasnât actually a ranch, it was a motel in the mountains. The bear rug in the motel, which Steve claimed he made after he killed the beast in Alaska, was actually a rug he found at a dump. Alaska seemed to be the location of many of Steveâs tall tales. Therefore, we should take the whole Alaska invention story, like all of Hensonâs stories, with a grain of salt. The other Salad Dressing Craze Letâs rewind the clock a few years. In the West, the Palace Hotel in San Francisco had the reputation of being the source for many culinary trends. One of these was the Green Goddess Salad, invented by chef Philip Roemer in 1923 in tribute to the stage play of the same name. The dressing for the salad was based on mayonnaise and vinegar, flavored with the herbs tarragon, parsley, chives, along with garlic and anchovy. The herbs took center stage in this dressing, hence the name. Green Goddess salad dressing grew in popularity throughout the 20th century and by the 1950s it was celebrated by food critics and travelers as âthe quintessential California salad dressingâ. Premade versions even became available in markets.
Steve Henson had to have known about the Green Goddess trend, and his guests at the Hidden Valley Ranch were certainly primed to become excited about a new, secret-recipe dressing. It seems likely that Steve Hudson took a basic buttermilk dressing, sprinkled some Green Goddess-style herbs in there, and dubbed it his secret âHidden Valley Ranchâ dressing. The Alaska origin story is doubtful. Though it makes sense that Hudson might have made buttermilk dressing while cooking for big groups in Alaska (are Alaskan construction workers big salad-eaters?), he probably wouldnât have had access to fresh herbs. It seems certain that this story was a California flourish. It was also at about this time that Hudson added another âsecret ingredientâ to his dressing: MSG. The âflavor enhancerâ Acâcent had become available in the 1940s, and according to insiders the Hidden Valley Ranch used it in their dressing. A dressing legend was born. Steve Henson, knowing a good thing when he saw it, began selling his dressing to neighboring restaurants. One of these, the Cold Spring Tavern, still serves Hensonâs ranch dressing, alongside local favorites like barbecued tri-tip and wild game chili.
Soon, Henson began working on a spice-mix version of the dressing, which needed only to be added to buttermilk and mayonnaise to create the signature Hidden Valley Ranch flavor. This was Hensonâs true invention- the idea that, instead of selling perishable dressing in a jar, he would package the âsecret seasoningsâ for his âHidden Valley Ranch Dressingâ. These packets contained powdered garlic, powdered onions, salt, pepper, dried parsley, and MSG along with dextrin powder, a kind of starch. He began selling the packets as a dip and dressing mix, and pretty soon he shut down the guest ranch to focus solely on packet production. Henson loved to create a mystique around the brand, featuring a cowboy on the label, playing up the Alaskan origin story, and building a restaurant and supermarket clientele. Hidden Valley Ranch became so successful buyers came calling, and packets of Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing and Dip mix became popular, first in California, and then throughout the United States.
Why did Ranch become so popular?
In the 1960s, as Henson was growing the Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix company, consumers were primed for a new dressing trend. Freshly tossed salads were becoming more fashionable, as âcomposedâ salads- the molded salads common in the early 20th century- became passĂŠ. Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing provided an alternative to vinegar-and-oil, along with a story of Western ranches and California living. âRanchâ was a potent word in the American midcentury- remember âranch-style homesâ were a thing, âRawhideâ and âBonanzaâ were the most popular shows on TV, and western style living- epitomized by Sunset Magazine- was definitely âinâ. Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing fit in with multiple trends: salads as a part of healthy eating, western-ness, and- perhaps most of all- convenience. Hensonâs flavoring packets- which really contained only a few herbs, spices, salt, and MSG, made it seem easy to make a restaurant-quality salad dressing at home. Henson had based his formula on dried and granulated flavorings, which were being perfected in the 1950s. And, using a spice packet along with mayonnaise and buttermilk seemed close enough to âreal cookingâ to make Americans feel as if they were making something special.Â
The Ranch Explosion
Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing began getting more and more popular- even beyond the west coast. Remember, in rural America, buttermilk dressings- and creamy soured milk-based salad dressings in general- had already been popular for more than 100 years. In places like Hensonâs birthplace of Thayer, Nebraska, creamy, white salad sauces were a kitchen classic. So, in rural America, Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing had a different meaning- it was a continuation of a salad dressing tradition, a commercially available version of a homemade staple, and a tribute to the farms and ranches of middle America. Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing was one of those products that could appeal to consumers on the coasts and to rural areas equally, though for slightly different reasons.
In 1972, seeking to diversify into food products, the Clorox company bought the Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing company. This event signifies Ranchâs transition from a small-but-growing dressing brand to a full-on category. For one thing, during this time, powdered buttermilk was added to the mix, making it even easier to make: now one only needed to add fresh milk and mayonnaise to the contents of the packet. Also, Clorox began marketing premade, shelf-stable bottled dressings in supermarkets. The green flecks of dried parsley- once a big part of Hidden Valley Ranch Dressingâs appeal, began to dwindle in the recipe. These innovations made Hidden Valley Ranch even more popular- and imitators began marketing their own âRanchâ dressings. The Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing brand now was one among dozens of âranchâ dressings, which was becoming an entire category of salad dressings. But, in the great tradition of salad dressings being a sauce anyway, people used ranch for way more than just salads, serving it as a sauce for a great variety of foods. Meanwhile, the inclusion of buttermilk powder in the spice mix made it possible to sprinkle it on anything to give it a âranchâ flavor: from steaks to french fries. The ultimate example of this might be the 1986 introduction of âCool Ranchâ Doritos, which included buttermilk powder, dried garlic, onion, and MSG. Nowadays, any tangy, creamy dressing with onions and garlic will be instantly identified as âranchâ, and any product sprinkled with dried buttermilk and onion and garlic powder will instantly seem âranch-flavoredâ. In Conclusion
Today, the ranch dressing phenomenon seems like a weird American quirk. For one thing, it is a goopy, white sauce, laden with fat, salt, and flavorings. Consumers can be seen dipping onion rings and pizza crusts in ranch, and it has become the mandatory sauce served with âhot wingsâ, a version of deep-fried chicken. Ranch has developed an identity as a tacky indulgence, a proletarian addiction, and the epitome of common bad taste. In truth, however, Ranch dressing is a sauce which has in its history the classical Mediterranean, European cuisine, and the American frontier. Itâs a sauce that- under different names- has been with us for hundreds of years. Its re-invention is in many ways the classic American story: Steve Henson took an old recipe and gave it a clear, new, romantic identity. Big food turned it into an inexpensive, abundant, shelf-stable product that could be eaten more or less daily.















