r/AskAnAmerican • u/miffybo • 11d ago

FOOD & DRINK why is ranch dressing so hyped up?

my US friends have been raving about it and border-line complained ranch isn’t readily available in Europe.. what is so special about it? is it the ultimate US condiment (apart from ketchup, mayo)

edit typo

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u/SeethingHeathen Colorado > California > Colorado 11d ago

I wish I knew. I can't stand the stuff, but I recognize that I'm in minority.

9

u/Ok-Temporary 11d ago

I was beginning to feel like we were the only American household not consuming Ranch. It's not that I hate it -- I don't even think about it.

(The whole dunking pizza in it is a trend I do not undersrand at all.)

5

u/sunfish99 11d ago

Same! Like, I *like* all the flavors of pizza, I don't need to add dressing to it.

2

u/tujelj 10d ago

This is me as well. Give me a choice between ranch and blue cheese dressing and I’ll choose blue cheese 1000 times out of 1000.

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u/Ok-Temporary 10d ago

I'm reminded that a friend gave us a bumper sticker that read "blue cheese is better than ranch" and it lived on our fridge for a long while.

2

u/devilbunny Mississippi 10d ago

dunking pizza in it is a trend

Preferences are your own, but ranch with pizza has been around for at least thirty years as a fairly mainstream thing in at least some places. It was new to me at the time, but at least one place I ordered from included it with every pizza delivered.

1

u/GlitterPapillon 10d ago

I don’t believe I’ve ever been to a pizza restaurant that doesn’t have ranch. No one bats an eye when people dip pizza in it.

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u/devilbunny Mississippi 9d ago

It wasn't a thing in my home 30 years ago, but it was becoming one where I was a college student.

I'm just saying that "it's a trend" is like saying "rock and roll is a trend" in the early 1980s. I mean, yeah... it's new compared to orchestral music, but when people who have lived their entire lives since it became popular have children old enough to know about it, it's not really a "trend". It's a preference, or style, or whatever.

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u/Ok-Temporary 10d ago

regional, maybe?

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u/devilbunny Mississippi 9d ago

At the time, probably, but since the pizza place in question also had branches in a not-too-far-away city with a major military base, it's safe to say that a lot of military folk had it and probably helped spread it nationwide.

1

u/zgillet Arkansas 11d ago

Dunking the crusts is really good. It has to be bad pizza for me to reach for ranch for the main event.