Ranch Dressing Was Invented in Alaska?

With its clean, dill-infused buttermilk decadence, Hidden Valley Ranch dressing has been on the coronary heart of Snopes’ truth checks all through the years. In 2023, we decided whether or not there can be a limited edition candy-corn-flavored ranch dressing. Earlier than that, we dug into claims that Kellogg’s had launched a “Ranch Pop-Tart.“

This time round, we’re inspecting whether or not the American favourite was invented by a plumber in Anchorage, Alaska, as some posts on social media, just like the one below (archive), have claimed:

To resolve this rumor, Snopes consulted a historic professional and dug by many years of archived newspapers.

We discovered that the ranch dressing recipe was created by Steve and Gayle Henson, who lived in Anchorage, Alaska, for a time. Historic accounts corroborated that the couple created the recipe whereas dwelling within the Final Frontier. The Hensons opened their ranch — later named Hidden Valley Ranch — in Santa Barbara, California, in 1954.

For these causes, now we have rated this declare as “True.” 

Snopes first reached out on to Hidden Valley Ranch, who referred our newsroom to the corporate’s “About Us” web page. It learn: 

HIDDEN VALLEY RANCH STARTED IN 1954

That is when Steve Henson and his spouse, Gayle, bought 120 acres of sprawling land nestled within the mountains outdoors of Santa Barbara, California, and began a dude ranch. Over time, Steve had been perfecting his signature salad dressing, a tangy mix of buttermilk, savory herbs and spices. His ranch visitors could not get sufficient of the stuff, and Hidden Valley Ranch dressing was invented.

It wasn’t lengthy earlier than visitors had been hounding Steve for jars of his ranch dressing to carry residence. Phrase unfold shortly, and fairly quickly Steve was sending little packets of his authentic ranch everywhere in the nation. Ultimately, we bought the mail-order enterprise so we may carry that daring, tangy taste to much more ranch-loving followers.

There was no point out there of the Alaska origination story, leaving us hungry for extra data. 

By a Google Information search, Snopes discovered an Oct. 4, 1987, Los Angeles Instances article titled, “Back at the Ranch: Saga of a Dressing Continues.” Its creator, Colman Andrews, wrote that he had obtained a letter from “Alan Barker of Los Angeles, who lived and labored on the ranch from 1959 to 1963.” 

Barker wrote that the dressing “was invented within the mid-’50s” by Steve Henson, “who opened Hidden Valley as a type of nation membership, nightclub, dude ranch within the mountains.” The letter continued:

[Henson] and his spouse Gayle constructed it from a a lot smaller present ranch with cash that they had made in Alaska within the plumbing enterprise. The ranch was not obtained nicely and promptly went broke. Throughout my keep, we lived on peanut butter sandwiches and leftovers from events thrown there by UCSB fraternities and sororities.

…

The dressing, which was initially blended with buttermilk and mayonnaise, had no title at first. We ate it on every thing from steaks to, in a comical second, ice cream. The visitors on the ranch first started asking for jars of it to take residence for themselves, after which needed bigger portions for his or her pals. They took it in liquid kind in mayonnaise jars. The impracticality of this led to packaging the combination as a powder.

Subsequent, Snopes contacted Chris Ervin, an archivist with the Santa Barbara Historical Museum, who instructed us “the story of Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing is our most requested query.” Ervin despatched our newsroom historic paperwork that confirmed the main points on the Hidden Valley Ranch web site and defined the dressing’s Alaskan origins. For starters, a 1971 clipping from the Santa Barbara Information-Press, titled “Salad Dressing– A Large Enterprise,” learn: 

The creation of salad dressing 20 years in the past as a passion in Alaska has been continued and developed into a world enterprise right here that final yr grossed over one million {dollars} for Kenneth B. (Steve) Henson. 

…

Henson, a local of Nebraska, was a plumbing contractor in Anchorage, Alaska for a while, throughout which the contract along with his males required him to feed them. “I all the time loved working with seasonings,” he stated, “and it was then that the liquid salad dressing got here into being.” 

The article describes the Hensons’ transfer to California in 1952 with their two kids. In making ready meals at what was then known as the Hidden Valley Visitor Ranch, the couple served salad with a dressing that grew to become a widely known “merchandise to take residence.” Henson later developed the liquid dressing right into a dry combine and commenced to package deal it. He launched a gross sales marketing campaign 1969 promoting a “39-cent twin pack making two pints and a 75-cent twin pack making two quarts.” 

On the time, the salad dressing combine was “examined and blended in nice batches” close to San Jose, California, earlier than being trucked to Los Angeles for bagging and distribution. 

In 1991, a publication known as The Impartial additionally wrote in regards to the dressing’s Alaskan roots, reporting that visitors on the Hensons’ ranch had been “significantly taken by the distinctive dressing that graced the salads” product of a recipe Steve Henson had invented “whereas attempting to maintain his work crews glad in Alaska.” 

In 1972, The Clorox Co. purchased the small mail-order dressing enterprise, in accordance with the company website, resulting in the Hidden Valley Ranch now accessible at grocery shops.