If you're anything like me, I was unaware of the history of ranch. I had always wondered why as far as the store bought kind went, Hidden Valley Ranch tasted the best. Well it should... they invented it.

Here is the legend of the Hidden Valley Ranch per their website:

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Over 50 years ago, Nebraska-born cowboy Steve Henson dreamed of striking it rich. So, along with his high school sweetheart Gayle, he did what so many young men before him had done and headed west. Outside Santa Barbara, Steve stumbled onto 120 acres of sprawling land nestled in the mountains and filled with streams, waterfalls and picturesque views. The family bought the land in 1954 and the Hidden Valley Guest Ranch was born. 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 Dressing. Guests loved it and asked for jars to take home to family and friends. Soon there was so much demand for the dressing that a mail-order business began shipping Hidden Valley Ranch dressing to an ever-growing fan base.

In case you were curious, ranch dressing's main ingredients are usually some variation of the following: buttermilk, saltm garlic, onion, herbs (commonly chives, parsley, dill, etc.) and spices (commonly black pepper. paprika & ground mustard seed), all mixed into a sauce. Sour cream and yogurt are sometimes substituted instead of buttermilk, the latter usually to lower fat content.

Ranch is the best selling dressing in America and has been since 1992 when it overtook Italian. Although ranch is highly popular in the United States, it's basically unknown in the rest of the world.

Hidden Valley Ranch, Facebook.com
Hidden Valley Ranch, Facebook.com
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