Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Chuck and I'm Josh and we're the host
Speaker 1: of Stuff. You should know the podcast that's right, And
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Speaker 1: and even boring things that are made interesting, you should
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Speaker 1: Stuff from how Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff, This is
Speaker 1: Christian Seger. If you have spent time in the US
Speaker 1: or Canada, then you have heard of ranch dressing. It
Speaker 1: was invented by a guy named Steve Henson in the
Speaker 1: late forties to the early fifties when he worked as
Speaker 1: a plumbing contractor in Alaska. In the fifties, he and
Speaker 1: his wife moved near Santa Barbara, where they opened the
Speaker 1: Hidden Valley Dude Ranch sounds cool, right, Visiting guests like
Speaker 1: the ranch itself, but they loved Steve salad dressing. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the Henson's just started telling that and the rest is history.
Speaker 1: Since ranch salad dressing has been the most popular dressing
Speaker 1: in the US. But ranch isn't a flavor, right, okay?
Speaker 1: People outside of the US and Canada, Thanks for bearing
Speaker 1: with me through the history lesson, but you may have
Speaker 1: tasted ranch flavoring before, just under a different name. In
Speaker 1: the Netherlands, for instance, cool ranch doritos are called cool
Speaker 1: American doritos. That weird American flavor you see advertised in
Speaker 1: the grocery store. That's ranch, and the main taste in
Speaker 1: ranch is buttermilk. I know, I know, but it's not
Speaker 1: quite that simple. Otherwise people would just pour buttermilk on stuff, right.
Speaker 1: The original ranch recipe also includes mayonnaise, parsley, pepper, salt,
Speaker 1: a little time, garlic, onion, powder, and msg. It's a
Speaker 1: dairy heavy recipe, which means the original version doesn't keep
Speaker 1: very well, and that means, in turn, the famous ranch
Speaker 1: dressing flying of shelves today is not the same stuff
Speaker 1: that Steve was whipping up for his guests. Instead, the
Speaker 1: result is some heady, complicated work by the eggheads at Chlorox. Yes,
Speaker 1: that Clorox. They bought Hidden Valley in ninety two. They
Speaker 1: had a huge problem though. You can't just plot bottles
Speaker 1: of buttermilk and mayo on an unrefrigerated shelf and hope
Speaker 1: for the best. So they started tinkering around with the recipe,
Speaker 1: practicing the arcane art of food science. They needed something
Speaker 1: that's still pretty much tasted like Steve's recipe, but was
Speaker 1: shelf stable, meaning it could sit around on a truck
Speaker 1: or in a grocery store long enough for customers to
Speaker 1: find and buy it. The details of Clorox's work remained secret,
Speaker 1: but it is a safe bet that Steve's original recipe
Speaker 1: didn't include things like calcium dis soda, mine ethel leah
Speaker 1: dah sanda. I can't even say this word. It's safe
Speaker 1: to say that he didn't do it. By three, they
Speaker 1: had cooked up a version of ranch that could stay
Speaker 1: on shelves for up to one hundred and fifty days.
Speaker 1: The first four ingredients of modern ranch dressing are vegetable oil, water, egg, gilk,
Speaker 1: and sugar. You'll also see disodium phosphate xanthem gum and
Speaker 1: the ever popular calcium disodium m M. Sounds good, right,
Speaker 1: and if you ask food reviewers like j Kenji Lopez Alt,
Speaker 1: most shelf stable recipes end up sacrificing flavor at the
Speaker 1: benefit of convenience. But you've probably also noticed that numerous
Speaker 1: companies make different ranch dressings. There's the Kens Steakhouse stuff
Speaker 1: that Paul Newman Guy. The list goes on and given
Speaker 1: ranches popularity, more competitors will enter the fray. It's inspiring
Speaker 1: when you think about it. A multimillion dollar industry sprang
Speaker 1: up because a guy in Alaska apparently decided he was
Speaker 1: tired of eating mayo and buttermilk. Separately, check out the
Speaker 1: brain suff channel on YouTube, and for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com