(classical music)
- Hey, welcome to Brain Stuff, I'm Ben.
If you have spent time in the US or Canada, then you've
heard of ranch dressing.
It was invented by this guy named Kenneth Henson in the
late 40s to early 50s when he was working in the
hinterlands of Alaska.
In the 50s, he and his wife moved near Santa Barbara,
California, where they opened the Hidden Valley Dude Ranch.
Sometime in this period, he also changed his name to Steve.
That doesn't really have anything else to do with
this episode, but that's kinda weird, right?
Visiting guests like the ranch itself, but they loved
Steve's weird salad dressing.
So much so, that eventually the Hensons just started
selling that and the rest is condiment history.
- Since 1992, ranch salad dressing has been
the most popular dressing in the US.
- But wait, ranch is not a flavor.
That's like saying, "Can I have nachos with a side
of Tuesday, 4 pm?"
Ok, people outside the US and Canada, thanks for
bearing with me through the history lesson.
You might have tasted ranch before.
The ranch flavor, but under a different name.
In the Netherlands, for instance, Cool Ranch Doritos
are called Cool American Doritos.
That weird American flavor you see advertised
in the grocery store?
Oh yeah, that's ranch.
And the main taste in ranch is, can we do a drum roll,
(drumroll)
- buttermilk.
- I know, I know, what?
But it's not quite that simple.
- The original ranch recipe also includes mayonnaise,
parsley, pepper, salt, a little bit of thyme,
- garlic and onion powder, and MSG.
It's a dairy-heavy recipe.
That means the original version doesn't
keep very well.
Which means, in turn, the famous ranch dressing
flying off shelves today, is not the same stuff Steve
was whipping up for his guests.
Instead, it's the result of some heavy, complicated work
by the eggheads, or should I say, ranch heads, ranch
hands, the scientists at Clorox.
Yes, that Clorox, who bought Hidden Valley in 1972.
They had a huge problem.
You can't just plop bottles of buttermilk and mayo on
an unrefrigerated shelf and hope for the best.
So, they started tinkering with the recipe.
Practicing the obscure, archain, dark art of food science.
I'm kidding, it's not that bad, it's pretty neat.
They needed something that still was pretty much
Steve's recipe, but was also shelf stable.
Meaning, it could sit on a grocery shelf long enough
for customers to buy it.
By 1983, they cooked up a version of ranch
that could stay on the shelves for up to 150 days.
The first 4 ingredients you'll see, if you look on the
nutrition label of modern ranch dressing,
are vegetable oil, water, egg yolk, and sugar.
You'll also see disodium phosphate, xantham gum, and,
the ever popular, calcium disodium ethylene diomene
tetracetate.
It's a real word, guys.
And, if you ask food reviewers, like J. Kenji Lopez-Alt,
most shelf stable recipes end up sacrificing flavor
at the benefit of convenience.
But you've also probably noticed that numerous
other companies make different ranch dressings, right?
There's the Ken's Steakhouse stuff, that Paul Newmann
guy, the list goes on, and given ranch's popularity,
more competitors are going to enter the fray.
And that's kind of inspiring when you think about it, right?
A multimillion dollar industry sprang up because
a guy in Alaska apparently decided he was tired of
eating mayo and buttermilk separately.
So, look, I have to ask.
How does this weird, buttermilk-based flavor superstar
fit on your plate and what's the strangest thing that
you put ranch on?
Let me know in the comments and thanks for watching.
Also, yes, if there's another food that you want to learn
about, drop me a line so we can cover it on Brain Stuff.