Before we know it, the holiday entertaining season will be upon us. Charcuterie, cheese and vegetable trays, along with assorted, chips, crackers, nuts, dips and spreads will be appearing on cocktail tables in neighborhoods all across America. Like everyone else, the snacks I choose to serve change every year, but, one thing that's always present in some form: Hidden Valley Ranch dressing or dip. Why? Everyone loves the taste of cool and creamy "Ranch". Interestingly:
A little over 50 years ago no one had ever heard of ranch dressing and now it is America's most popular salad dressing. We do much more than top our salads with it too. It is our dip of choice for vegetables, a marinade for our meat or poultry, and, a flavoring in our favorite brands of corn and potato chips. I buy very little bottled salad dressing in general (although I do keep a bottle of Wish-Bone Light Italian in my refrigerator at all times), but, when my boys were small, I was one of those mom's who kept a stack of Hidden Valley Ranch seasoning packets in my pantry at all times. Why? Like many of you, it was the only way I could get my kids to eat their vegetables.
A bit about ranch dressing: It is a wholly American invention with a bona fide rags-to-riches story. In 1954, Nebraska-born Steve Henson (once a homeless child of the Great depression, former plumbing contractor and a cook in Alaska) and his wife Gayle, bought the sprawling, picturesque, 120-acre Sweetwater Ranch in Santa Barbara, CA. They renamed it Hidden Valley, opened a guest-type dude ranch and attempted to live out their life's dream of entertaining and cooking for their paying guests. But, due to the remote location and lack of funds for advertising, Henson found himself facing bankruptcy. One thing the few guests at the ranch were talking about: his salad dressing. Henson had developed the recipe back in Alaska: a garlicky emulsion of mayonnaise, buttermilk, dried herbs and spices.
Henson knew how popular his dressing was when guests started asking to purchase jars of it to take home with them, but, it wasn't until one of them asked to take 300 bottles back to Hawaii that he saw a business opportunity. Henson didn't have 300 jars, so he took a few hours to package his dry spice blend in a bunch of envelopes. He instructed his customer to mix each envelope with 1-quart of buttermilk and 1-quart of mayonnaise.
In 1964, Henson closed his ranch to guests and entered into the salad dressing business full-time. He assembled a small team of workers in his home and developed a small-scale mail-order business that mailed 75-cent packets of Hidden Valley salad dressing mix to the local community. It wasn't long before he moved into a controlled facility that produced 35,000 packets every eight hours. In 1972, Henson sold his business to Clorox, they developed ranch dip packets, and, the rest is history.
Try my Happy Valley Ranch-Style Dressing recipe:
And, try my Happy Valley Spinach Dip too:
"We are all in this food world together." ~ Melanie Preschutti
(Recipe, Commentary and Photos courtesy of Melanie's Kitchen/Copyright 2021)
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