Savor Classics: Ranch

Ranch, America's favorite salad dressing, originated on an actual dude ranch. In this classic episode, guest Ben Bowlin joins Anney and Lauren to wrangle the cool American history of ranch as a condiment and flavor -- plus the science behind why it's often served with hot wings.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie
Reese and.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm Lauren vocal Baum. And today we have a classic
episode for you about Branch.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yes. Yes, and it's kind of an older one, correct.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah, this one is from January of twenty nineteen. Goodness,
what an innocent time.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Yes, indeed it was. We didn't know it then.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
But no, no goodness. And we have as a guest
on this episode the wonderful Ben Bolan, real life friend
probably human dislikes Ranch as much as you do. Annie.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yes, yes, And before we get into that, because I
do have a little, a little bonus I was going
to add in here. Was there any particular reason this
classic was on your mind to bring backborn?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Oh yeah, sure, well, we are in fact approaching yet
again the big game.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Not the big game.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Uhha that one.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Oh no, well, at least you use the proper terminology
so we won't get in trouble.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
You can literally say that it's okay. Well sure, yeah,
but Ranch. And also we did a back to back
Ranch episode and Wings episode in twenty nineteen in honor
of all of that. And yeah, it's fun, it is fun.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
And this was a really fun episode. It was fun
to have been on and let him kind of vent
about his dislike of Branch, and then I got to
connect and then you were sort of the I think
it's fine.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
I'm the more moderate position here.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
And I'll say that even since then this might be
shocking to you, I have I have grown to appreciate
Ranch more. I think that in fact, doing this episode,
like learning about the history and ingredients of Ranch, I
was like, oh, man, like now, like like if I go,

(02:32):
if I go to a place and I order some
wings and they say on the menu that the Ranch's
housemade I'm like, all right, yeah, totally give me that.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
All right.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Annie's look of shock and horror. She pulled up her
sweatshirt hood like like Kenny like there was like.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
I had to isolate myself really process your words for
a second. I bet you know, a housemade Ranch probably
very good. I'm trying to be more open minded about
these things. You've been trying since twenty nineteen, so I

(03:15):
continue to try. I can to try.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
I will say that, like the late twenty teens was
a big time for Ranch. However it hasn't really like
I mean, like like that was a time when a
lot of things were when a lot of things that
are obviously bad for you were very pop culturey, very
forward in pop culture. That was like around the time

(03:41):
that like everyone was like, oh, man, Bacon, have you
heard of it? And we were like, yeah, yes, yes,
but but I mean so it's like cool down a
little bit pun absolutely intended, but like, like just just
a week ago, Taco Bell really a Hidden Valley Diabolo

(04:02):
Ranch sauce to pair with their chicken nuggets. And that's
on the heels of McDonald's releasing in the fall of
twenty twenty five a Buffalo ranch sauce for their menu,
so like it's still in the zeitgeist. It's not going anywhere.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
I have to say, the phrase Taco Bell just released
a Hidden Valley Diablo ranch sauce to pair with its
chicken nuggets is not something I was expecting, But Taco
Bell often does things I do not expect.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
That's really their thing. I think it is.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
That is true.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
They're going for the element of surprise.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Succeeding.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Also in the intervening time period between the Hidden Valley
Diabolo Ranch sauce from Taco Bell and this episode, premiering.
We did a whole mini episode about Hidden Valley making
a diamond out of ranch dressing in September of twenty
twenty two, So.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yes, we did, and I wanted to mention I know
I talked about it in this mini episode. One of
the reasons I was inspired. I was like, Lauren, we
should talk about this is that I tormented Ben Bowling
with this through various text messages where I just wanted
to remind him that this existed because it consists of

(05:36):
what he calls an ultra monstrosity of things he hates.
And then I became convinced we should do a short
horror on the hvr LVR. Hidden Valley Ranch Lover was
inscribed on the band of the ring that they made. Yeah,

(05:59):
and I was like, this is clearly somebody who's trying
to torment you. Let's write a horror movie and try
to find out who the Valley Ranch Lover is.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
I think the idea still has legs, you know.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
I think it would be good. I don't. He was like,
maybe I think we should do it.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Well, maybe it's time to circle back, you.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
Know, yeah, and remind him of this thing that he's
probably buried under.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
He's like living in total comfort, having gleefully forgotten about it,
and you're like, oh.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
Hey, maybe I'm hvr LVR. Oh No, I just think
it would be a great name. Like even the just
the letters alone feel menacing, and I think it would
be a great title. Wow. Yeah, maybe I'll just send
him a mysterious text. Leader.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
I think this is a great plan.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Thank you, Lauren. Always trust you to back me up.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Oh well, with all of that being said, I suppose
that we should let former Annie, Lauren and Ben take
it away.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Hello, and welcome to Savor.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren vocal Baum. And today, well, okay,
today we're talking about Ranch.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yes, we're building up for the big game, that that
big video game playing session that we like to do, oh,
the Super Bowl.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
The Puppy Bowl. And we're also here to celebrate that
momentous occasion with our friend Ben Bollin.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
Thanks so much for having me on the show, Annie
and Lauren. I have a lot of feelings about Ranch.
I suspect that's why you invited me here today, but
big fan of Savor in general. I always look forward
to hearing about your adventures.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Oh, thank you we're a big fan of yours.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yes, and back when food Stuff was like a video series,
you were one of the hosts of it, and I
was the producer slash editor, and we our first episode
was for the Big Game and it was about chicken wings.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
Yes, the secret is an offensive amount of butter.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
That's true. That's true. Yeah. I remember in particular, it
opened with you and the other host, Kristen covered in buffalo.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
Sauce, which was not We didn't set that up. I
think that just happened.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Yeah, it does tend to happen when you're eating chicken wings.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
I like what you're saying too about the Super Bowl,
the way that we sort of ritualize it. It has
this almost like how a holiday has a set menu
of sorts. The super Bowl seems to always revolve around
like a certain number of foods, right, pizza, chicken wings, beers.
Is that a food? Sure?

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah? Yes, it better be. Oh gosh, well, drink responsibly. Yeah,
Buffalo chicken dip, I think is my preferred chicken I
almost aid embidment method. That's not correct, That is super incorrect.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Chicken vehicle, chicken vehicle.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yes, there you go. But you often find ranch dressing
as a side to chicken wings. And we do have
a chicken wing episode coming up, so wait for that.
We're doing a whole thing here.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
Oh yeah, it's thematic.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yes, yes, I myself, I am not a ranch dressing person.
I'm much more into blue cheese and I would rather
have no dressing on my salad at all as opposed
to Ranch. I think it's close to Mayo, Yeah, but
I don't have the same level of hate for it
that I have for Mayo. It's lesser.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
Yeah, I'm with you there, Annie. I'm also a blue
cheese person. I will. It's weird because so my girlfriend
is ranch person. I don't want to ranch shame her
or whatever. But there's a chicken wing place we always
go to, and it's a fantastic place. They have two
choices of sauces, and I think relationships have been maybe

(10:17):
not wrecked, but complicated over the issues that arise when
people disagree on which sauces is superior. I t each
their own, but.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
Especially after a couple of beers there, right, it's sort.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
Of like you like what one of my I know
it's ridiculous, but one of my things is I could
never long term date anyone who is picky. Never And
I know this. And when I went on a date
once with somebody who was picky, and I was like,
this isn't gonna work, sorry about it. I know that's
not a great But I know myself. I know myself.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
No, I think, yeah, it's good. Yeah, it's good to
have standards of one kind or another. Not all of
them should be about manning, but like.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
All of them, not all of them, but some of them.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
Some. Yeah, yeah, go to a You got to have principles,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, I also like to go back a little bit.
I like how you called your girlfriend a ranch person,
Like there's two types of people in this.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
If you're listening, I stand by what I said. I
will die on this.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
Hill relationship killer ranch dressing, all right.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
I meanwhile, am relatively ranch neutral. I mean I would
if it's a ranch versus blue cheese issue, I would
rather have blue cheese because I love blue cheese. But
I mean, but I don't mind ranch. I'm not like
Homer Simpson with like the bring me the ranch hose
like kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
But yeah, yeah, that's kind of how you were about Mayo, right, Yeah, yeah,
it's fine. Yeah, well greed and disagree, green disagree. My
whole family is a ranch family. Like we would go.
I've told this red Lobster was a big like outing
for us. And you get the salad with the meal,

(12:05):
and they would go around the table and everyone would
be liker Ranch, Ranch, Ranch Italian and I'm looking at them.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
Like, what's wrong with you? Well, you're not just in
the minority of your family, as will come to find
your a minority in this country, right.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
Yes. Dressing wise, yes, America is a very much ranch
obsessed nation.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
As one headline that I read put it one nation
under Ranch.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yes, yes, yeah, And it's strange because the when you
think about it, ranch is tremendously popular, but it's also
somewhat enigmatic. A lot of people who love ranch have
no idea why it's called that, what the taste is,
what exactly is going on with this thing? I mean
dress salad dressings in general are pretty weird. Thousand Islands

(12:55):
Russian dressing. Do they just call it dressing in Russia? Like,
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
These are the questions the bottom up. Yeah, and branch
is pretty uniquely American, which we will get into. But
we should really get to our question.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah, this brings us to the question ranch.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
What is it?

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Well, ranch can mean a lot of things. It's both
a condiment and a flavor, as we've been discussing as
either or both. It's a creamy, tangy a little bit
herbal with a savory spicy bite from an onion and
garlic and black pepper in condiment format. That can be
achieved using a wide range of ingredients for that creamy
tart base, anything from buttermilk to sour cream, to mayo

(13:40):
to any kind of mayonnaise vegan substitute. Thank you for
appreciating my jesty there.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
But.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
I did a on. The herbs are commonly dill, time
and parsley, and all the seasonings can be either fresh
or dried in flavor format. Ah man, y'all, flavor science
is weird. Yeah, any number of natural or artificial flavorings
and texturizers might be employed to achieve ranch.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
Peak Ranch. Well, what about the nutrition of ranch?

Speaker 2 (14:18):
It depends on what you make it out of the shelf.
Stable dressing is more vegetable oil than anything else, which
means it's a high calorie food, y'all. Like two tablespoons
that's about thirty grams packs, about a quarter of your
daily recommended intake of fat, without a whole lot of
payout in terms of other nutrients. So it's a treat.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, not a food group.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
I know that that's shocking information to some of you.
Put down, put down your broccoli, pitchforks.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
That's true. You always get it with your You're like
healthy as a different sauce with your vegetables.

Speaker 3 (14:53):
Which is one of the reasons that so many salad
options at restaurants are actually more unhealthy than the regular
stuff you gain.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
Oh, that made me so mad the first day that
I found it out. I was like, why have you
betrayed me?

Speaker 1 (15:06):
Salad?

Speaker 3 (15:07):
Yeah, it's true. And what really stands out to me
about what you're what you're exploring here, Lauren, is the
way that you describe the wide range of flavors possible
after the base. It makes me think that this checks
all the boxes for things that people are evolutionarily inclined

(15:29):
to desire. Right, Oh, yeah, I got the fatty stuff
you had a little sharp there. They're even I want
you to be ready for this, Annie, we don't have
to go into it, but they're even sweet varieties of Ranch. No. Yeah, yeah,
I didn't bring any today.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
My god, I know, Annie's like recoiling right now.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
And I hope we're still friends.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
Oh. I feel like I'm gonna say a number of
things during this episode that aren't going to be y upsetting.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
So it's kind of the perfect weapon to make a
salad unhealthy and make a person's taste budge the majority
of the time very very happy, little taste buds.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Weapon is a good word. Well, you know, I have
to say, as much as I dislike Ranch, I really
did like cool Ranch doritos. Oh yeah, but I usually
put them on sandwiches. We're okay, never mind, I'm gonna
think about this later.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Is it a texture issue?

Speaker 1 (16:34):
I do like a crunch? I mean that's popcorn. Well, sure,
if you think about why I love it, the crunch
is one of the main reasons. Sure, But I did
choose I mean I liked I preferred Nacho's Nacho cheese.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
Oh okay, but in a pinch, the cool.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
Ranch would do. It would do just fine. Okay, let's
talk some Ranch numbers. Yeah, since they're passing Italian dressing.
In nineteen ninety two, Ranch has been America's most popular
salad dressing. It is this popular dip for vegetables and
for chicken wings.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
I like.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
It was the most shipped dressing to America's restaurants and cafeterias,
double that of its closest competitor, blue Cheese.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
And according to twenty seventeen survey by the Association for
Dressings and Sauces, which is a great association, probably forty
percent of Americans called it their favorite dressing. The nearest
competitor in that survey Italian garnered ten percent, only ten percent.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
But are you sort of inspired? It's finally something almost
half of the country can get behind, you know, despite
all of our varied differences and disagreements. You know, easily
like four out of ten people are saying, all right, ranch,
we can we can get along with that ranch.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
Can't we go along with something better?

Speaker 3 (18:00):
L Without getting too political, the answer is probably not,
Oh no, well, this isn't.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
Hopeful at all, the opposite of hopeful. Another thing that
I thought was kind of I guess this makes sense,
but the average American eats salad dressing thirty eight times
a year. For some reason, I thought it was more,
But I eat a lot of salad, and fifteen of
those times it's ranch dressing. New York Magazine has called
it the Great American Continent, and it's only sold in

(18:27):
thirty countries actually, where it's not frequently called ranch. No no, no, no, but.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah, of course ranch isn't just for salads.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
And if we're looking at ranch sales, they continue to
go up, even though the category as a whole is
relatively flat. The global information company NPD Group calls ranch
dressing the Swiss Army Knife of salad dressings. An article
from the Week asked if it's the new.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
It's not. I object Yes, no, I have a I
have a viable reason for objecting.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
I would love to hear it.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
I'll be preaching the choir. You all know the evolution
of ketchup as a as a vinegar based fish condoment
called garum. Right, and ketchup, although we associate with tomatoes,
is actually a name for a kind of process that
can be applied to different things, like banana ketchup in
the Philippines, mushroom ketchup in the UK. Ranch simply does

(19:33):
not have that sort of versatility. They're very, very different things,
again to each their own. Eat what you will, but
please don't mistake Ranch has I'm sure it has its
merits for people in this country. Think so, but it's
not ketchup.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
No, No, I love this like factual, fact based approach
you have.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
I'm trying to be objective. Annie.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yes, and you know Ben and I are really coming
out hard against Franch. But yes, to each their own.
Not too judgy, try to keep it to ourself. But okay,
despite clear evidence that is not the new ketchup. This
the goal of Hidden Valley brand, The big like, the

(20:18):
biggest brand behind Ranch dressing is that their new products
become this new ketchup. And they have this ad campaign
called Hidden Valley for Everything, and the head of the Food,
Charcoal and Kitty Litter division at Clarox, which owns Hidden Valley,
said the goal is for Ranch to become as ubiquitous

(20:39):
as ketchup on restaurant tables and in consumers kitchens. The
bottles even have the phrase the new ketchup on them.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
What's that Harry Potter meme? How dare you stand where
he stood?

Speaker 1 (20:56):
That's right, that's right, because I do love ketchup. I
can't imagine it's hard for me to imagine a universe
in which I would sit down at a table and
they would be mustard, ketchup and ranch.

Speaker 3 (21:11):
You can usually ask for it, though in many restaurants.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Oh absolutely, even though I know it's shelf stable, or
I mean relatively shelf stable. I don't know the idea
of a bottle of ranch sitting out on a table
kind of swigs me out.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
I would imagine it does for a lot of people.
I remember in our Mayonnaise episode we were talking about like,
if you're bringing a potato salad or something to make
our a pot look, you should leave it out that long.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
Yeah, but it is good business to diversify, right. If
you have a flavor that works, you immediately want to
translate it to other To borrow the line from the
Buffalo chicken tip conversation, you wanted to go to other vehicles, right,
That's why there are ranch flavored chips. Yeah, out of
all the cool flavors they could have chosen, they chose

(21:58):
ranch just because the numbers may sense right. So they're
expanding both in the types of food that will carry
this flavor profile, and then they're also trying to make
ranch associated as a condiment. With other foods that you know, Look,
here's what they're doing. They're coming for French fries, and

(22:18):
I feel like I feel like we're ignoring that issue.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah, now you're totally right.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Do I sense a stuff they don't want you to
know episode coming on the heels of this.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
I don't know. We it always it always gets a
little bit strange when we do food science, and we
usually ask one of you on the show to help
us with that. But I promise I won't riddle this
with any any Kakamamie conspiracy theories, because that's not one
that is objective, blatant. It's a blatant declaration of food work.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
It's not a conspiracy theory. It's just a conspiracy.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
Yes, yes, How did they decide to do this? What
made them decide to push Hidden Valley Ranch specifically as
the new abiquitous dressing well?

Speaker 1 (23:00):
According to Kloro's executive Grant La Montagna, allegedly, he got
the idea for the Hidden Valley for Everything campaign after
witnessing his daughter slather her salmon with wrench And I
have to say, I am morbidly curious as to what
Americans would put branch on if it was available, like

(23:22):
right next to ketchup.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
Oh, I have some information about that later on boo.

Speaker 3 (23:27):
And if you wouldn't be judged if you felt like
you were in a safe place, because I'll come clean
with you, guys. Speaking of salmon, I've been living a
lie so often in places where I want to just
eat smoked salmon, but I have to do this whole
song and dance of also pretending to want a bagel.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
Right, yeah, no, I get to yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
I'm so glad we're all on the same page with this.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Well, I mean, going back to Ketchup, there was a
time in my life I think this is extremely bizarre
now I just want to say it, Okay, But it
was in college, So it wasn't that long ago that
I would get French fries because I wanted the ketchup.
But I knew it was socially unacceptable to just get
a plate of Ketchup. So I'd be like, I'll get
some fry, like not enough fries for the huge wile cat,

(24:12):
so that's on the plate. And I knew it was weird,
but I knew that I would be very much judged
if I just got a plate of ketchup.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
So there's clearly potential here, right, And my next question
is is this working.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah. Of the dressing industry, it worth one point seven
billion dollars. Eighty two percent of that comes from shelf
stable dressings like Ranch Hidden Valley, which is the most
popular brand, sold four hundred and fifty million dollars worth
of Ranch products in twenty seventeen.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
They have a Ranchology rewards program that lets you on
their website that lets you earn coupons and samples by
browsing around, so you can and I quote, keep on ranching.

Speaker 1 (24:59):
I do like It's terrible.

Speaker 3 (25:01):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
I do like it. I mean props where they're do.
I'm not sure I'm somebody who should be giving up
props because I love really really lame things. But I
like that. I liked that.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
You're an eight year old kid and you have become
a Ranchologist. That's pretty neat. You probably get some swag
for it too.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
I have to get like a card that says, keep
on ranching, Ranchologist. Yeah, that's otherwise what are we doing?

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Yeah? And for any people listening who want some free swag,
this is not guaranteed to work, but you will often
have favorable results if you write a letter, If you
actually type out and mail a letter to a company
like this and say that you love ranch, they'll send
you stuff.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
I'll just send you stuff. Yeah, yeah, certainly spam will. Yes,
we learned that in our spam episode.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
Oh that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Oh yeah, we didn't. We didn't learn it personally, but
many stories stories abound.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yes, I might do this, but it would be a
lie and you don't have to keep it a secret.
By I love Ranch, but I just want the Ranchology card.
So most of these sales of ranch come from the
southern and midwestern US, where it is the most popular,
and the condiments industry in general is valued at five

(26:21):
point six billion dollars a year in the United States. Wow,
my family is a big condiment family. Like people used
to joke when they'd come over because it would be like,
here's this sauce, here's this sauce, here's this Everybody had
their different sauces that they wanted. My dad was called
the condiment King. So this isn't surprising to me, but

(26:43):
it is quite It's a hefty number. Yeah, And as
we've kind of been discussing, there are so many ranch
flavored items, starting with the biggest one, Dorrito's Cool Ranch Chips,
which in Iceland and Norway is known as cool American
Flavor since the dressing isn't commonplace and in the End

(27:03):
Kingdom they're called Cool Original.

Speaker 3 (27:05):
So, okay, I have a brief story about this. It's
the one time I was tricked by Dorito's into eating
cool Ranch Flavor. Because the way you feel about having
a salad plane instead of having a salad with ranch dressing,
it's the way I feel about chips. If you know,
I'm not going to be a snob or make a
scene about it, but I'm just gonna skip the chips

(27:27):
if they're ranch flavored. And I was in London and
I was at, you know, a convenience store, buying a
sandwich or whatever, and decide to have some chips because
their chip game is just very different. You know, they
have like cheese and onion chips, which are not that bad,
and these other flavors that wouldn't naturally occur. So when
I saw a Cool Original, I was like, oh wow.

(27:50):
I thought it was just a different kind of Dorrito
and that it was maybe perhaps because I had no
idea about Dorito's past as a chip. I thought maybe
perhaps this was the original chip in Dorito's was despite
the name of a British chip, and I tried it.
It was ranch and like I spat it out on
this street and looked like a total barbarian, you know.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
Like, maybe you looked cool original.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
I think I just looked very American.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
Well too bad they didn't have American in their name.
It would have worked perfectly. Yes, you know I was.
Last time I was in London, I went to American,
an American style restaurant. This was my friend who lives
in London suggestion, not mine. But on the menu was
an item that confused me so much, and it was
American style chips. I was like, are these French fries

(28:41):
or are they potato chips? What American style? Are we
talking about?

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Which chips and which American is it?

Speaker 3 (28:49):
Like the old George Crumbs story where he was supposed
to make French fries but he sliced them so thinly
that they became potato chips.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
Did you order them and find out I don't think
I did.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
I think I did, but I don't think I got
to the bottom of the mystery because they had other
types of chips. I can go back and look at
my picture though, because I took a picture of it
because I was so perplexed by this whole thing, American
styled chips. What is that? And there are also so
many flavors of ranch. There's saracha flavor, avocado flavored, garlic flavored.

(29:23):
Hidden Valley has over seventy ranch products. There's vegan ranch,
there's ranch flavored soda. And apparently there are dessert flavored ranches.

Speaker 3 (29:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
Sorry, I think it's well, people put ranch in desserts,
but I think for the most part, there's just like
slightly sweeter versions of ranch. There's like more less sugar.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
Kind of like cupie mayonnaise versus regular path Yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yeah, or like the mayonnaise chocolate cake.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
Maybe that's the thing.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, well yeah, yeah, it's tangy. Yeah. I think that
I didn't know existed until I was doing this research.
Is flame and hot Chipotle ranch cheetos.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
Oh if.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
That's a big goof the flame and hot cheetahs are
always the first to go here in the office. I wonder,
I wonder what the chipotle.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
Ranch someone is taking those home?

Speaker 1 (30:14):
We all know who it is.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
Yes, for the record, since we're uh, since we're an
audio show. When you said that, Annie, the three of
us sort of turned towards producer.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
Hmmm. I will say nothing further on the matter. There
is also a restaurant in Saint Louis, Missouri called Twisted Ranch,
which features ranch in every dish.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
They offer a bloody marry with branch infused vodka. Not
just American style ranch either. They've got Greek style ranch
with feta and oregano. They've got Indian style ranch with
gilgurt and curry spiced blend. So maybe it is the
new ketchup.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
No, don't say that.

Speaker 3 (30:59):
It probably is there at Twisted Ranch.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
That's true. You know, they can live in their own
like bubble reality where that is the truth.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
I will admit I'm very curious about ranch flavored soda,
and if I went to you know, it's a win
and Rome kind of situation. The next time I'm in
Saint Louis, if I'm out that way, then I'll take
the bullet for the team. I'll go to the ranch place.
My girlfriend will absolutely love it, so I get some
points there. Yeah, yeah, I'll get a salad.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
I have to say, I am expressing a lot of rial,
but I also am always open to new experiences, and
it's possible I just haven't found the ranch for me.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
Yeah yeah, yeah, you could kind of rom commet, you know,
like find the right one.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
I don't know about that. There's an ice cream parlor
in Montana where you can get ranch flavored ice cream,
which was inspired by the owner's daughter.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
Oh yeah, no, it's a recipe ingredient, Like why do
buttermilk fried chicken when you can do branch fried chicken
potato salad. I could use some ranch mac and cheese
ranch Thanksgiving stuffing. I read this on the internet. I'm incredulous,
But yeah, just put some ranch in there.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
I've seen it. I've seen it happen, the last one
I've seen happen. I would be curious about ranch fried chicken.
I wonder how that would work.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
I guess she would marinate it.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, like I said, marinade.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
Oh okay.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
And while we were doing this research, I was reminded
of that Melissa McCarthy skit from SNL where she just
chugged that whole thing of ranch like she was doing
a test thing for like you an ad like how
much do you love ranch?

Speaker 2 (32:44):
She loves so much.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
And it was very gross turned my stomach.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
I have not seen that, and I'm kind of glad.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Well, it's out there, it's out there. It is popular
among celebrities from Chrissy Teagan, Olivia Wilde, Katie Perry, and
Courtney Cox. Ranch dressing is also the title of a
book by prominent romance novelist Janet Daily, and the tagline
for that book is cowboys never go out of style.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
Oh wow, bringing a couple of threads together.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
Here, right, that's right, that's right.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
Oh I get it, Ranch dressing. Okay, anyway, uh over
over On Thrillist one, Will Fulton once put Ranch on
a whole lot of shall I say, unexpected things, to
see if it could possibly be bad on anything. The
answer was yes. But his surprise favorites were watermelon and
cinnamon toast crunch.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
I can see the watermelon, but I cannot get behind cinnamon.
To's gun.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
He was so shocked by it, apparently, he wrote that
he made other people around the office. He was like, no,
something good is happening. Please try it. Apparently cinnamon is
a great addition to ranch.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Well, we do have half a box of cinnamon toast
crunch in our very office. I'm sure we could do.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
Oh geez, oh heck, why did I say this?

Speaker 1 (33:58):
That's fine.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
He also said that it makes a great chaser for
a shot of fireball.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
Wow, that is quite the night you're setting yourself up for. Yeah,
I'll take some fireball and a shot a Ranch.

Speaker 3 (34:13):
Dressingly, Ranch back with my fireball. Speaking of great decisions.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
Wow, this is going to start a trend. This is
definitely gonna take off.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
But you would be delighted if you were a person
who doesn't care for ranch yourself, you would be delighted
to learn that there are other people on your side. Right,
not just Annie and myself? Right.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
Not everyone is a fan. Take the title of this
Washington Post article, ranch dressing is What's wrong with America?
Which I read and want to say, I thought it was.
It was a little too much.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
It was very strongly worded. There was some backlash. Oh yes,
Twitter didn't like it.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
Oh and the attack don't like anything. Yeah, just to
give you a sense, folks, of the tone of this.
The Washington Post opinion piece is an opinion piece has
the tagline fancy restaurants need to stop experimenting with this
revolting milk rot.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
Okay, that's good. I like that.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
You're like that part, I'm on board with.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
Well, if it's like said in a kind of joking way,
if it's like true, I don't know about that, But
if it's kind of like tongue in cheek, sure, and
I like that quote.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
It's the kind of topping series chefs correctly disdained for
decades is extravagant and trashy, but now animated by a
kind of fattish philistinism. Professional food connoisseurs are giving it
another look and they go on, they've got choice phrases.
You can read the article of full your Google search way.
But it reminds me of a larger trend that we

(35:50):
see in restaurants now, where well, it's a cyclical thing
where in innovative or quote unquote edgy chefs will will
take some thing that would traditionally be considered a lower
form of food. I don't agree with that, but that's
what they would call it, and then try to elevate it, right, oh.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah yeah, and then charge you like fifteen bucks.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
Yeah, Like fried baloney sandwiches are making the rounds. Really
huh Yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Mean, I mean that sounds delicious.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
Oh man, I used to eat that a lot when
I was a kid.

Speaker 3 (36:18):
Yeah, they're probably really good and you can probably get
them with ranch. I am at this point in the
episode convinced that is true.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
Oh, I am too. I am too. And another trend
that I've never personally witnessed but apparently is a pretty
big thing is people dipping pizza in ranch dressing. Yeah,
and a pizza restaurant in Dallas, Texas offers a side
of ranch at the low low price of one thousand dollars.
It's not as a joke like don't you dare dip

(36:46):
your pizza and ranch? And when the owner opened his restaurant,
a friend of his that worked in the Pizza Hut
Innovations department gave him a bottle of ranch to congratulate
him for opening. And for five years there's the bottle
sat unopened on the bar, the owner refusing to offer
ranch in his restaurants, but in twenty sixteen it was

(37:07):
purchased and the proceeds went to the Animal Rescue center.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
Also, Pizza Hut Innovations department sounds like a great gig,
don't get me wrong. I love being a podcaster.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
Oh yeah, crazy dream job.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
But I would totally take a side gig at the
Pizza Hut innovations department. So if you're listening pretty much anybody,
any pizza place, but Papa John's like, I'm down, I'll
help you with innovations.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
Yeah, write I'm a letter.

Speaker 3 (37:33):
There we go. I am not joking. I will actually
do this. I'll do a copy.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
Worst case you get some you get some free march
out of it.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
Or a great response letter. Let's get weird with it.
Oh yeah, and maybe pitch some ideas to them, just
to show them that we've got the child.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
You've got some innovation ideas.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
Oh yeah, here's an innovation. Price Wise, I was off
the air. I was looking into the most expensive rand ever.
Because we think of it as a really accessible condiment.
That's another thing that is a is at least a
factor in its popularity. It's really an expensive to buy

(38:11):
a bottle of ranch dressing. Hidden Valley in March of
twenty eighteen created the most expensive bottle of ranch dressing ever.
It is jeweling crusted. It's still just ranch.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
It's that different.

Speaker 3 (38:32):
It has a diamond sapphire and eighteen carrot white gold
ornamentation on a glass bottle, and according to the press release,
they celebrate they were doing this to celebrate the recent
wedding of Prince Harry and Megan Markle.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
I'm sure so thrilled.

Speaker 3 (38:52):
Yeah, they said, Hidden Valley Ranch is honoring the great
pairing of a fellow famous American with British Royalty. This
is the only way to serve America's favorite ranch to Royalty.
Would you like to know how much this the retail
price of this bottle?

Speaker 1 (39:09):
Wait? So they sold. They didn't like give it to
them for their wedding, you.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
Know, they gave it away to someone in a contest,
in a.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Giveaway, but a sticker price. I mean, I can't not
know it at this point.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yeah, we have to.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
Know, Okay, you want to guess. You just want to know.
We'll probably save.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
Time one million dollars.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
God thankfully, not thankfully not thirty five grand, which sounds
less insane when we've anchored it with the price of
one million dollars.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
But still, I was going to guess sixteen thousand. So
that's okay, that's a lot. Yeah, it's about double Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
And in twenty seventeen, they made a five liter keg
of ranch that costs fifty dollars and, according to their estimates,
would provide you a year's worth of ranch.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
At once, unless you're having the most epic kegaarator party
and it has some fireball a ridiculous I wonder if
they served ranch at the royal wedding.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
I very much doubt it.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
I wasn't invited.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
Yeah, I couldn't fit it in my schedule.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I see you man. I mean, come on,
how these royals get married all the time?

Speaker 3 (40:17):
Yeah. Yeah. And it's like a clingy thing too. Once
you go to someone's wedding, you're basically agreeing to be
friends with them for a while. And Harry's a little
clingy on snapchat. That's what I'm saying that I wish
them the best, you know what, I wish them the best,
And really it makes sense. Again, it's a great way
to sort of, I don't want to say further infiltrate

(40:40):
or invade, but to establish recognition of this brand in
the United Kingdom.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Oh yeah, yeah. See, well your history with Harry aside,
we have some other history notes for you. But first
we're going to take a quick break for a word
from our sponsor.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with some ranch history. Dressings with buttermilk go
back to at least nineteen thirty seven, as indicated by
recipes out of Texas. Specifically, ranch as we know it
today got its start in the early nineteen fifties, the
brainchild of a plumbing contractor from Nebraska named Steve Hinson.

(41:31):
Hinson spent three years working in Alaska, often cooking for
his colleagues, and while doing so, he came up with
and refined a recipe for a buttermilk based dressing. A
couple of years later, in nineteen fifty four, he and
his wife Gail, moved to Santa Barbara and opened a
dude ranch called Hidden Valley Ranch. Yep, that one. But uh,

(41:55):
if you're like me, and I've just never put much
thought into what a dude ranch is, luckily been you
oh yeah, put some thought into.

Speaker 4 (42:04):
A day and this dude ranch specifically, right, Okay, so
a dude ranch nowadays, and even back then, it was
like a cowboy experience vacation, you know what I mean?
You would you would go there to uh ride horses,
maybe maybe herd cattle do just the fun ranch stuff,

(42:24):
not like shoveling manure or anything, and the name sounds
weird or essentially, a dude ranch is is the kind
of thing or the kind of experience that Billy Crystal
and his friends are signing up for in that film
where they.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
Go out West this City Slickers, Thank You. All I
can remember was the part of the title of the sequel,
which was like the Hunt for Curly's Gold or something.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
I went through a weird phase where I loved that movie.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
Me too as well. Yeah, yeah, I don't know if
I'll rewatch it. But that's that's a fairly it's a
fairly accurate representation of what a dude ranch is. And
the etymology is strange because when the term came about,
dude used to mean not just like a unisex reference
to a person the way it does now. It used

(43:17):
to mean specifically an urbanite, someone from the city. So
this is like a city boy ranch. So you're not
a real you're not a real ranch hand, you're not
a real cowboy, but you get to have that experience.
And there was a there was a boom in popularity
of these sorts of vacation destinations because people romanticize that

(43:43):
relatively short period of American history known as the Wild West, right,
so people would go there to have their yeah, to
have their duty experiences. But like that craze where everybody
was buying EMUs with the intent of raising them for
livestock fad, this thing blew up, but it eventually died down.

(44:04):
You can still go on ranch vacations today, but they're
not nearly as popular as they were, at least as
far as I understand. And the Hensons were convinced that
this was going to be a new living right. Forget Alaska.
It's way too cold up there. He got so lazy.
He was like, I'm tired of eating mayonnaise and buttermilk

(44:24):
separately and ridiculous, right, And he and Gail they moved
to this place. It was originally called Sweetwater Ranch, and
then when they renamed it Hidden Valley, they opened this
dude ranch. They started advertising. People were coming in. It
was one hundred and twenty acre property. But the problem

(44:45):
was they weren't making that much money out of the dootery.
They might lose the making that word up. Sorry, they
might lose the family property. They only had one thing
really going for them to differentiate them from all these
other dude ranches that people could visit.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yes, and two things before we go into that one.
Now that I think about it, I believe the Mary
Kate Nashley movie How the West Was Fun was about
a dude ranch experience. And two I should have specified
Santa Barbara, California, just in case you didn't know, all right.
So the thing that they had going for them other
than this dude ranch is when guests visited the Hidden

(45:29):
Valley Ranch, they got samples of this dressing and they
loved it. They loved it. It was so popular that
the Hinson started selling it. There were two versions, the
dressing itself and a seasoning pack that would be mixed
with mayonnaise and buttermilk later and they got more request

(45:49):
for the dressing than for bookings at the ranch.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
Which was great because at one point, before they really
made this economic shift, they had to sell off part
of the ranch to keep the business going. Yeah, I
think like forty sixty acre or something like that from.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
The Hidden Valley website quote At the ranch, guests enjoyed
the great outdoors by day and home cooked meals by night.
But it was something else that brought them back again
and again, delicious homemade buttermilk salad dressing made with a
special blend of herbs and spices, lovingly prepared by the
proprietor the original ranch registered trademark dressing. I think that's

(46:33):
I think that's how they would read it.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
People were going, it's sort of like the way you
were ordering fries or the way that I would order bagels. Sometimes,
to my shame, people were going here and saying, yeah,
we'll do like we'll ride a horse or whatever.

Speaker 5 (46:50):
Horse.

Speaker 3 (46:51):
I love that.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
I guess dressing.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
I also have these empty mannaise jars. Could you fill
them with that dressing? I will pay you.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
Yeah. Yeah, that's that's pretty accurate. I can just imagine
someone like, I guess we'll go ride this horse at
the end.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
But yeah, yeah, just their chaps are stuffed with mayonnaise jars.
Yeah for filling with ranch dressing afterwards, I.

Speaker 3 (47:15):
Think you'd be good, right or goals?

Speaker 1 (47:20):
Oh goodness.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
The first place to serve Hidden Valley Ranch outside of
the Ponmus Ranch was supposedly the nearby Cold Spring Tavern,
a restaurant and bar that originated as a stagecoach stop
back in eighteen sixty eight and is still open and
still serving Hidden Valley Ranch to this day. According to
the current third generation owners of this place, their mother Audrey,

(47:43):
started serving the dressing in nineteen sixty three after Henson
brought a sample over for her to try, and quote,
it took off in my mouth like a freight train.

Speaker 3 (47:53):
Weird as and that's like as a a good experience.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
Yes, that's a direct quote from Audrey's granddaughter about how
she would always describe the experience of that first taste
of ranch dressing.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
H I wonder, I'm trying to think of anything's ever
taken off in my mouth like a freight train. If
I would ever use that descriptor. I think I get it.

Speaker 3 (48:17):
I get it. That's weird. Sesame oil, I guess that
blew my mind.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
Zing oil is pretty great. I know.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
I think a number of the things that we ate
back on snack stuff. Yes, Ben and I used to
have this Facebook live video show where we ate weird
stuff on camera.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
It seems like such a great idea at the time.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
Yeah, Like a year and a half later, both of
us were like, oh oh.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
But oddly enough, I don't think we ever ate any
ranch flavored things out of all the strange stuff we tried.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
Eh, ranch is so like normal.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
That's true. That's true. This show did get very weird.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
Oh actually, I think some of those crickets were ranch flavored.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
That's right. Yes, we ate three flavors of crickets.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Oh all right, I think that's the one that got
super Producer Andrew for the show.

Speaker 3 (49:08):
That Annie. We're just out here try new things, you know,
to boldly go applaud.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
You, I applaud you. I wish that some of the
ranch flavored soda had come your way. Well, okay, back
to the history. Yes, yes, Soon after all of this,
the husband and wife opened a factory and founded Hidden
Valley Ranch Food Products, Inc. And distributed their spice packets
and supermarkets and stores across the Southwest. The first store

(49:38):
to sell it was Kitty's Corner in Santa Barbara, California.
We fast forward a bit. Clorox brought the company in
nineteen seventy two for whopping eight million dollars. And yeah,
they are still the owner to this day. And yes,
Clorox the cleaning product.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
What was it?

Speaker 1 (49:57):
Food and rich? You know, it's fascinating world out there.
In the nineteen eighties, Clorox made some changes to the
recipe to make it easier for the customer, and the
biggest change was switching from buttermilk to buttermilk flavoring so
that the product would be shelf stable. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
All this time, these bottles had been sold in the
refrigerator section.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
Yeah, or you'd get there, or.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
You would get the seasoning packet.

Speaker 6 (50:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
Yeah. The non refrigerated bottle became available in nineteen eighty
three with the shelf life of one hundred and fifty days.
And this is about when it really took off in
the United States. And Okay, just to drive this home,
I know, I keep like bringing this up, but the
same folks that reformulated ranch dressing came up with pine

(50:45):
sal so cool and weird.

Speaker 3 (50:50):
Yeah, it's it's strange because food science, I think, fascinates
all of us. And it's a hidden world, you know,
the process which something homemade becomes something that you find
on a shelf in a supermarket. The what we're essentially
saying here is the hidden valley. Ranch brand addressing that

(51:10):
you'll see in stores today differs to a great extent
from the stuff made in Santa Barbara. So maybe you
actually do and I actually do like the original ranch. Yes,
we would have to make it in a non shell
stable version because this stuff, let's see what the modern ingredients.
What vegetable oil, water, a little bit of sugar. Now
there's dye, sodium phosphate xanthem gum and the ever popular

(51:35):
calcium disodium. I don't know why I put ever popular
in my notes.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
I think ever popular in our book.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
There we go. It's strange though.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
Yeah, yeah, I definitely know that I have had a
homemade mayonnaise that I did not outrighte de spies. So
I think that you're correct, man. I think that there
is still hope for ranch, for me and possibly for you.
But okay, speaking of mayonnaise, this is around the time

(52:06):
that Mayo, like we talked about in our episode on Mayonnaise,
was getting dinged as a diet buster, and ranch became
a socially acceptable way to get your mayo with your
vegetables without actually getting mayo. Fast food chains like McDonald's
started offering packets of ranch with their salads, and a

(52:27):
lot of other fast food chains followed suit. Where McDonald's
goes many others will follow.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
In the mid to late eighties, more and more restaurants
started using ranch and using it in place of mayo
on burgers and sandwiches. It was a good middle ground
for people who didn't like the texture of mayo, and
since ranch is thinner, it's easier to spread. It was
a better sandwich option than olive oil as well, because
olive oil makes bread soggy. And another big thing. Fredo

(52:57):
A came out with cool ranch curritos in nineteen eighty six.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
According to a cookbook called Ranch authored by one Abbey Reisner,
the doritos were really the tipping point.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
I can see that exposing a lot more people to
the flavor.

Speaker 3 (53:12):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
In nineteen eighty seven, Kraft and Unilever, which is the
owner of the Wishbone brand, came out with their own
versions of ranch dressing. Clurhucks partnered with Fridlas to come
out with Hidden Valley Ranch wavy lays at the same time,
and then a salad dressing miracle the American rap craze

(53:36):
of the nineteen nineties. Who among us could forget the
KFC twisters Actually me, I have no idea. I had
to look it up.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
There and they're wraps. I remember them. Yeah, apparently they
were advertised like, I don't think I ever ate one.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
I thought it might be one of those. I remember
Mohen McDonald's was doing that thing at one point where
you'd get the salad in like a salad shake up.
Oh yeah, you'd shake it.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
I thought that's that was cool. That was fun.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
I suppose that's one word at a very low.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
Bar for fun in the nineties.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
So you know, you're probably having much more enjoyment out
of life.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
You're right, though. It was a rap craze, wasn't it.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
Yes, Oh, I do remember the rap craze. Also, restaurants
like Applebee's and Chili started using ranch as addressing on
their salads, and nutritionists were not on board with this.
In an article called the New Salads the Latest and
Fast Fraud, the authors lamented that fast food salads were

(54:38):
just as bad, if not worse, for you, than the
burger options. One particular offender was McDonald's crispy bacon ranch salad.
You can look up the article.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
It is m sounds scathing.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
Yeah, I mean what honestly, it's like, buyer, beware the buyer,
at least be aware if you're ordering a salad in
three of the words in the or crispy bacon ranch,
how good is it for you? You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (55:06):
Yeah, I hadn't really thought about it, I do. I
also remember the day I learned that, you know, your salad.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
Salad dressing is bad for you? Probably yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
Yeah. And also just I don't know if this is
still true, but I remember a report coming out that
salads had more sugar in them than like the mcflury
because the preservatives they used in the salad or something.
There was some other like it's also got a lot
of sugar.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Yeah, yeah, the dressing and also probably like a lot
of them have like sweet elements, like either like a
candied walnut or like a dried cranberry or.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
Something like that.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
So that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Yeah, yeah, it does make sense.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
Meanwhile, the pizza dipping thing, though surely it existed before
this next point, got a big boost in nineteen ninety
four when Dominoes added wings to their menu, which they
sent out orders of with ranch dressing. People then had
both pizza probably and wings on the table. There was
this ranch there.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
This is really funny because I just realized we're going
to be talking about this point again in our Chicken
Wings Yeah episode, this is a very important date in
the America.

Speaker 3 (56:14):
Food landscape nineteen ninety four. Yeah, everything changed.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
It's one of those fixed points that they talk about
in Doctor Who, like you can't change it, Like that's
it's just there forever. Some things you can meck with.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
That one stays when Domino's offered chicken rings and ranch
in nineteen ninety four.

Speaker 3 (56:30):
It's sort of like the difference. I don't want to
be morbid, but it's sort of like that study with
people agreeing to be organ donors. If you am going
somewhere with this, okay, if you if you're getting a
license here at the DDS or DMV in this country,
then typically you will opt in to be an organ donor.

(56:51):
So not everybody does it, sure like my kidneys are
my own, you know what I mean? Yeah, and my
liver is mine direct that kind of stuff. But studies
show that if you change it so that people have
to opt out, they're much less likely to say no,
my kidney's and mine, my liver's mind to destroy. And

(57:12):
so just sending this dressing along requires people to opt
out rather than to opt in. So it's everybody loves
feeling like you get an extra little freebie, right. That's
why combo meals work in fast food. So so this
means that if you wanted to fight against ranch, you
could just try to perhaps by writing a letter you

(57:34):
you could try to get them to include a different sauce,
you know what I mean, in place a branch. I
think maybe that ship is sailed, but it's huge.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
I think it's too late. I think that if we
could time travel and this was not a fixed point,
if we can convinced Dominoes to send something different.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
Domino's is a powerful force in the universe. Is talked
about it before. And you know side note the three
people podcasting right now, we are all what we call
stray cats at the office, oh h, which means it's
very difficult for us to turn down the free available
food or drink.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
That is true.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
And I have recently eaten the ranch that came with
Chicken Wing's order, even though I did not want to,
and regret it, regretted it immediately, but I was there like,
maybe I'll give this another got no no, no, no
no no.

Speaker 3 (58:29):
While Annie was saying this, she got a thousand league
stare and wrung her hand.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
I recall it. I was sitting on the floor. I
recall it so well, and I know, like the container
is at the top of my trash can right now.
So every time I throw something away, I see it
and I'm like, why did I do that?

Speaker 3 (58:49):
But at least you got something that, even if you
didn't like the taste of it, didn't poison you.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
That's true. And if we jump ahead in our ranch
dressing timeline to twenty fifteen, Wishbone had to recall almost
nine thousand cases of ranch dressing that had mistakenly been
filled with blue cheese. That would have been a wonderful
surprise for me, but not for everyone else. No.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
In twenty seventeen, Hidden Valley opened a ranch outlet store online.
It was on March tenth, by the way, which is
National Ranch Dressing Day. The shop currently only has one item,
a T shirt that reads Peteza Level Expert and has
a little image of a ranch bottle on it, but
prior designs appeared to a featured slogan's like peace Love

(59:39):
Ranch and carpet, Ranch carpet or Ranch it knows sees
the sees the Ranch. Apparently they were also selling ranch
coozies like coozies for your ranch bottle.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
Oh oh no, and a ranch fondue fountain. Finally, right,
we've all been waiting so long for this innovation to
come our way. Well, I mean, congratulations to them. I

(01:00:17):
kind of hope that I somehow stumble upon a ranch
dressing T shirt.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
I don't know why.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
I like a free T shirt.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
Hm.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
I feel like I could wear it and think about
the time I.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
Ate and he was laughing there, not crying, but it's
it was sort of it was sort of borderlines.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well that brings us about to this
day and to some ranch science.

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
Yes, and we will get into that ranch science right
after we get back from a quick break for a word.

Speaker 5 (01:00:54):
From our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
So ranch science, Okay, because ranch is such a popular
dressing here in the United States, there's actually a decent
bit of ranch specific scientific inquiry into how to best
produce it. The two studies I found were this one
kind of like heat processing bottling kind of process. I

(01:01:30):
didn't from that word salad. I obviously didn't write down
very much about it. That one, and also the the
flavor profile of ranch, like if they tweak singular elements
in it, like more but milk less, buttermilka more garlic,
less garlic. Figuring out what the like sweet spot of
most people's ranch preferences to build the ultimate ranch, the

(01:01:53):
uber ranch.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
No, it would really be a weapon, then.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
But the science that I was really interested in was
why we like it so much to begin with, or
why some people who aren't, like three and a half
of us out of four people currently listening to me
talk right. And Julia Moskin, writing for The New York Times,
pointed out that folks have been enjoying sauces that are
creamy and have a little bit of a bite of

(01:02:22):
like herb and spice and pepper. This is not a
new thing. Think of every butter or cream sauce that
gets flavored with onions or garlic. Think of every cream
or cheese or yogurt sauce that you see with Dylan Parsley,
I think of the simple pleasure of just a nice,
creamy pepper sauce. These sauces are cooling or coating, and
they can either gussy up plain foods like pasta or

(01:02:43):
other starches or chicken whatever, or they can bring spicy
foods back from the edge a little bit. You know,
your buffalo wings, Yes, okay, yeah, And the latter works
because of one of the properties of a common spicy
flavor compound, capsayisin. It's the stuff that makes hot peppers hot. Specifically,
it binds to the nerve receptors in your mouth that

(01:03:03):
are responsible for telling your brain when something is physically warm.
It triggers those you're like owl burning.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
Your brains are no. Continued, but yeah, sauce on there
either one like.

Speaker 3 (01:03:15):
When we all ate the world's hottest.

Speaker 1 (01:03:18):
Chip, oh, a piece of it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:21):
A piece of it we didn't each eat. You have
to buy the chip individually.

Speaker 5 (01:03:24):
You do.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
I still kind of regret that fraction of a chip.

Speaker 3 (01:03:28):
I wonder if ranch would step that down it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
Would help clear it off your tongue because because so,
the thing about capsaicin in this particular element is that
it's hydrophobic. That is, it avoids water molecules and gravitates
towards fat molecules. And that's why drinking water to relieve
the burn of spicy peppers doesn't work. Capsaian said, isn't
water soluble, so it'll just stay stuck to your nerve receptors.

(01:03:55):
But it is fat soluble. So when you consume a
fatty product like ranch, the molecules of fat and other
hydrophobic compounds that are bound up with that fat will
bind with the capsaicin and wash it away. That's why
people say to drink milk if you have spicy stuff
rather than Yeah, the rether than water. Capsaicin is also

(01:04:16):
alcohol soluble, though, so beer can totally help less than
last ranch, less than fat.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
But still help, but still help. This is great, Lord,
I'm having the more you know moment.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
Yeah, and probably because of this, as we will talk
about in our chicken wings episode, one of the reasons
it started to be served with chicken wings, and like
beer became a thing with it too, well, all connected.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
I mean, there is a science reason there. I think
it's also I mean I think there's a cultural yes,
of course element.

Speaker 3 (01:04:48):
This goes all the way to the top. I just
I made a deal with myself there. I would say
that at least once in this episode, I was waiting
for a time when it would be appropriate. But I
don't think that time's gonna gonna happen. So I'm just
gonna throw it in there.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
You did it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
Good job.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
Thank you, thank you, yeah, thank you for teaching me
so much about Ranch, because, like many of us listening
to today's episode, I'm familiar with it culturally, but for
a long time I didn't know. I didn't know very
much at all about the name or the science behind it.
And it sounds like to redeem Ranch a bit. It

(01:05:23):
has a reason to be on the table. This goes
beyond taste. There's some solid science behind it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:29):
I would point out that blue cheese dressing would do
the same spice thing that Branch does.

Speaker 6 (01:05:35):
All right, cool, trying to throw Ranch dressing life preserve
I mean back, I mean technically, if you just like
ate a pad of butter like, it would help too.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
I'm not necessarily recommending that you do that unless you
want to.

Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
Unless you're at that point.

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
We're trying to not be as judgmental as we have
been throughout this whole episode, but as as the time
for I was just discussing with our coworker Ramsey, who
you will hear from soon. I love Super Bowl food.
I don't watch football, and in fact, the past couple
of years I have just had like a huge party,

(01:06:18):
and the game is not even all like chicken Rea's
pizza beer, and this year it is being held in
our very own city. It is so maybe y'all, maybe
I'll get one of those kigs Rich.

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
Oh you mean the super Bowl?

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:06:36):
I thought you meant the party that you throw every
year is being for some reason this year held.

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
Or Yeah, I move all around wherever the super Bowl is.
I am there, but I'm not watching it. I'm all
eating chicken face. That's just that's just who I am.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
You're like in the stadium with your back turned and
like a large clatter of food in the seat behind you.

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
Yes, like purposely, I've got a headphone. Thanks on ignoring everyone.
It's my ritual. But I think that brings us to
the end of this ranch dressing episode. I would love
to hear from listeners from other countries. Yeah, what do
you think about all this? Have you ever eaten this flavor? Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
What's the most popular condiment in your neck of the
Global woods? And is it like ranch? Is there something
like ranch in your country? In your area?

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Yeah? Yes, please please let us know. Thank you so
much for joining us, Ben. Where can people find you?

Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
Oh? Yeah, thank you for having me. Let's see, like
many of us here, I wear several different hats. You
can find me on Stuff they Don't want you to Know,
our podcast that separates the Fact from Fiction and all
sorts of crazy allegations of the parent normal, government conspiracies
and true crime in Fact. You can also find Lauren

(01:08:01):
and Annie themselves dropping by Stuff they don't want you
to know to make an appearance, so check out our
food science episodes on how Nesley is super Villain. You
can also learn about Annie's adventures in Australia. I also
do a show called Ridiculous History that you might enjoy,
which is what it says on the ten. It's about

(01:08:21):
some of the most cartoonish, strange, dumbest, weirdest, most bizarre,
and yes ridiculous things that we as a species have
done throughout the span of human civilization. And there are
more things, but we're all over the internet. I guess
if you want to find out about him, you can
follow me on my Instagram where I'm at in a
burst of creativity at ben Bullen.

Speaker 1 (01:08:42):
Genius. Have I never thought of that?

Speaker 3 (01:08:45):
Wouldn't it be crazy if that handle instead was like
Super Ranch Fan ninety nine.

Speaker 1 (01:08:53):
You should do that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:54):
I'm just saying for a little bit, can't tell you
what to do.

Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
But and that brings us to the end of this
classic episode. We hope that you enjoyed it as much
as we did recording it the first time and bringing
it back. It was really fun.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
Oh oh absolutely. Yeah for more from Ben Bollen. He
is still on stuff they don't want you to know,
which is now on Netflix. There's this whole thing where
iHeart is putting some of its podcasts on Netflix now,
and so you can see his face when he's talking.
If that's a thing that you're into, you certainly can.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
It's a wild world out there.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
It is. It is. And if you have any thoughts
or feelings or experiences with Branch, we would love to
hear from you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:46):
Yes, any recipes are uses.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
I oh yeah, oh yeah. Maybe if you think you
have the homemade ranch recipe that would turn Annie into.

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
A believer, send it my way. Yeah, I will try
it with an open mind. You can email us with
any of these thoughts, recipes, what have you at Hello
atsavorpod dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:10:11):
We are also on social media. You can find us
on Instagram and blue Sky at Saber pod and we
do hope to hear from you. Save is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, you
can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you
for listening, and we hope that lots more good things

(01:10:32):
are coming your way.