Wed Sep 04 2002 at 16:00:41
Ranch dressing got its name because it was first mixed up and served at the Hidden Valley Ranch in Santa Barbara. Hidden Valley was a dude ranch in the 50s and 60s run by Steve Henson. Ranch was based on a recipe Henson first developed for hard working workers in Alaska who wanted a calorie-rich dressing. He made it from a mixture of mayo and buttermilk. When he opened his ranch, he tweaked the recipe a bit for the more refined tastes of his LA patrons.
The dressing soon came to over shadow the offerings of the ranch itself. People began to visit just to buy a jar of the dressing. Eventually he created a powdered version for sale in grocery stores. The dude ranch business was shelved and the land was converted into a mixing and packing center. Eventually volumes increased so much that the small road that ran to the ranch couldn t handle the truck traffic and the operation was moved to Nevada.
Drama in aisle 12.
Things are heating up in the condiments aisle for at least one Buffalo grocery chain, which has reportedly pledged to pull a Kansas City-branded barbecue sauce before the Buffalo Bills meet the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game on Sunday.
Things got hot when Rich Gaenzler of Buffalo’s 97 Rock radio station recently urged local grocers to pull KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce from stock before the big game, WKBW reports. KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce, pictured. The Bills and the Chiefs will battle on the road to Super Bowl LV, and one New York supermarket is going all-out to support the local team. (Michael Tercha/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)