Peter Jensen: Reclaim our proud nation from the scourge of ranch dressing | STAFF COMMENTARY
Sure, I thought I’d seen and heard a lot of tough things over my hard-bitten decades as a card-carrying journalist. Stuff you don’t forget like crime scenes and natural disaster sites and reality television celebrities running for high office. And I’ll admit you get a little jaded. The world isn’t always so pretty. People don’t always act appropriately. There are days when you’ll see grown men wearing socks and sandals. Others will talk with their mouth full. And if I have to hear Donald Trump explain what it takes to be a bad Jew one more time (apparently, it has something to do with which party you favor and its approach to foreign policy), I’m pretty sure I’m going to scream. But I wasn’t prepared for the news about what’s happening in America’s kitchen table — or possibly its fast-food restaurant table, which is more or less the same thing.
Brace yourself.
Tell me, do you know what this country’s best-selling condiment is? You’re probably thinking ketchup, right? Or maybe mustard? Possibly mayonnaise? Well, you’d be completely wrong. And, since you’ve surely read the headline on his column by now, you probably know the truth. The sad reality is that ranch dressing is the single best-selling condiment in the United States. And it’s been true for a half-decade or more, according to Nielsen data — a circumstance now widely touted by Hidden Valley, the leading producer (and, appropriately, a subsidiary of Clorox, maker of cleaning products). Ketchup may produce $1.26 billion in sales this past year, but ranch dressing squeezes past that figure with total sales of $1.3 billion. Barbecue sauce trails far behind with sales of less than $1 billion.
You know what ranch dressing is? Parents know it’s the one salad dressing that kids will eat because it’s rich but more or less flavorless. Ranch dressing is made from a collection of neutral-flavored things you probably have sitting in the back of your refrigerator. Most recipes call for equal parts mayonnaise, sour cream and milk or buttermilk. Seasonings can include salt, pepper and possibly a bit of chives, dill and/or parsley. No vinegar. No lemon or lime juice. No olive oil. No basil. It has that slightly sweet, slightly sour taste to which young children can relate. But adults? What self-respecting grownup orders ranch dressing with any meal (aside from a crudité platter or possibly cooling your mouth after a really, really hot chicken wing)?
Listen, I’m not closed-minded about food. I’ve eaten Cincinnati-style chili, for heaven’s sake. You ever tried that? Even some residents of the Queen City are reluctant to go full five-way over spaghetti. I’ve eaten Philly cheesesteak “wit” (meaning with onions) and fully-loaded Chicago-style hotdogs with yellow mustard, chopped white onions, bright green sweet pickle relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices, a small pickled pepper and a dash of celery salt. Whew, it’s exhausting just recalling all the condiments. Did I mention the hotdog has to have a natural casing, preferably the Vienna Beef brand? Not a trace of ranch dressing on any of them. They’d probably shoot you at any Chicagoland Portillo’s if you even tried.
The problem is ranch dressing isn’t just reserved for toddlers. It’s being eaten by adults. And not just on salad. According to The Wall Street Journal, the folks at Hidden Valley want people to use it on cheese crackers, pizza, nachos, pretzels, hot dogs, and on and on. Here’s my suggestion: Don’t. Seriously. Don’t. If you must come up with a dipping sauce for your fast food, keep a 16-ounce bottle of Chick-fil-A dipping sauce in your refrigerator (just $3.48 at Walmart) and squeeze away. (Pssst, not to give away any chain’s secret recipe, but I believe it’s mostly barbecue sauce and honey mustard mixed together). It’s not gourmet but it’s not entirely bland either. And kids eat it, too.
What happened to our national pride? What happened to expecting our kids to eat food the way it was meant to be which is freshly cooked on a McDonald’s flattop before inserted in a bun and loaded with ketchup mustard and a slice of pickle so thin you can see through it? If it was good enough for us boomers, it’s good enough for zoomers. We let our standards down and the next thing you know we’ll become health conscious. And what a betrayal of the Trump era norms that would be.
Peter Jensen is an editorial writer at The Baltimore Sun; he can be reached at pejensen@baltsun.com.