Dipped In: Issue 1

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SUMMER 2022

DIPPED IN The Sauce & Dip Headquarters

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HOLY MOTHER!

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CURB YOUR APPETIZER

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TORTILLA CHIP’S OTHER HALF

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A CHILI SAUCE TO CROW ABOUT

DIP DIP HOORAY!

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RANCH NATION

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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THE SAU HEADQU YOUR EV STANDA

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UCE & DIP UARTERS FOR VERY NEED. RDS EDITION.

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STANDARDS: Your well-known but certainly not basic dips and sauces.

Think ketchup, ranch, guacamole, or spinach artichoke dip, but with our special take on them.

WELCOME TO DIPPED IN

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

HOLY MOTHER!

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The Five Mother Sauces of Classical Cuisine

By Danilo Alfaro and Shane Mitchell

In the culinary arts, the term “mother sauce” refers to any one of five basic sauces, which are the starting points for making various secondary sauces or “small sauces.”

They’re called mother sauces because each one is like the head of its own unique family.

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THE FIVE MOTHER SAUCES

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“I tried to dive into the pan, headfirst, to taste it with my finger,” says chef Hélène Darroze, recalling the moment when, as a little girl, she was being held by her grandmother, Charlotte, who whisked the Béchamel on the stove with her free arm. “I would have walked to Lourdes for the simple pleasure of licking the bottom of the pan or of eating the crust off a gratin made with this simple, creamy sauce.” Darroze started refining her taste in the kitchen of her family’s restaurant in southwestern France, and is now the fourth generation to wear chef ’s whites.

Béchamel is the mother sauce most of us learn first. The French call them les sauces mères—bases that have simmered over centuries, changing in character and execution with the arrival of ingredients—peppers, nutmeg, tomatoes—from neighboring royal courts and global trade routes. The five modern mother sauces were codified in A Guide to Modern Cookery, an abridged 1907 English-language translation of the original Le guide culinaire by Georges Auguste Escoffier, the chef and writer famed for updating his country’s culinary canon. To the original four sauces (Velouté, Béchamel, Allemande, and Espagnole) enshrined by his predecessor, royal chef Marie-Antoine Carême a century earlier, Escoffier added Hollandaise and Sauce Tomate, and reclassified Allemande. (Mayonnaise, one of his essential cold sauces, is now considered the sixth mother.) Once mastered, the secondary sauces (known as “daughters”) are only a few ingredients away, making it possible to execute the entirety of traditional French cooking and access much of the Francophone food diaspora as well. With colonization, the mother sauces made their way into other cuisines, from Viet-French Sót Mayonnaise to Creole Sauce Piquant in Haiti and New Orleans, underlining the complex influence of an Old World culinary power.

Until recently, those adhering to the ancient regime rarely acknowledged the cultural significance of “la cuisine grand-mère”—home cooking—or elevated women to the upper echelons of gastronomy. Slowly, that has begun to change. As chef of her eponymous restaurant at The Connaught in London, Darroze is one of only three French women presently awarded three Michelin stars. (The others are Dominique Crenn and Anne-Sophie Pic.) She also has a pair of Basque-influenced restaurants in Paris, and has been inspired to introduce global flavors to her menus by her two adopted daughters, both born in Vietnam. But Darroze continues to honor her grandmother by preparing memorable gratins bubbling with Mornay sauce, a Béchamel daughter enhanced by Brebis, a sheep’s milk cheese from the Pyrénées.

Along with Darroze’s creamy recipe for her childhood favorite, consider these mother sauces as building blocks for so many dishes we adore, whether drizzled on poached eggs for a showy brunch or baked into humble mac-andcheese casserole for a summer picnic.

01 — Béchamel Béchamel is the mother sauce most cooks learn first, as it is probably the most simple, not requiring you to make stock. It is a simple white roux of flour and butter, whisked with milk or cream, then simmered until thickened. Because it’s so versatile, Béchamel easily crosses borders, appearing in recipes for a basic croque monsieur, moussaka, lasagna al forno, and chicken fried steak smothered with white gravy. This is the base for daughter sauces such as onion-infused Soubise or cheesy Mornay, which chef Darroze uses to assemble her creamy vegetable gratins.

Béchamel is made by thickening hot milk with a simple white roux. The sauce is then flavored with onion, cloves, and nutmeg and simmered until it is creamy and velvety smooth.

Béchamel can be used as an ingredient in baked pasta recipes like lasagna, and also in casseroles.

But it’s also used as the base for some of the most common white sauces, cream sauces and cheesebased sauces.

Here are some of the sauces made from béchamel: Mornay Sauce Nantua Sauce Cream Sauce Soubise Sauce Mustard Cheese Sauce

02 — Velouté Velouté means “velvety” in French, and is the more complex sister of Béchamel. The recipe begins with a flour and butter roux that is cooked until slightly “blonde” in color, then blended with light stock instead of milk. Traditionally, this liquid was made with unroasted veal bones, but Escoffier also recommended versions with poultry or clear fish fumet. Sauce Velouté is often used as a base for soups such as this creamy chestnut potage. With the addition of lemon, egg yolks, and heavy cream, it’s also the base for a daughter sauce called Allemande or Parisienne, while adding shallots and white wine creates Sauce Bercy.

While the chicken velouté, made with chicken stock, is the most common type, there is also a veal velouté and fish velouté. Each of the veloutés forms the basis of its own respective secondary mother sauce. For instance, chicken velouté fortified with cream becomes the Supreme Sauce. Veal velouté thickened with egg yolks and cream becomes the Allemande Sauce.

And the fish velouté plus white wine and heavy cream becomes the White Wine Sauce.

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Here are some of the sauces made from velouté: Normandy Sauce Bercy Sauce Aurora Sauce Hungarian Sauce Mushroom Sauce

THE FIVE MOTHER SAUCES — BÉCHAMEL & VELOUTÉ

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“I would hav the simple bottom of crust off a simple, cre

ve walked to Lourdes for pleasure of licking the the pan or of eating the a gratin made with this eamy sauce.”

— Hélène Darroze

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03 — Hollandaise Hollandaise Sauce is unlike the mother sauces we’ve mentioned so far, due to a liquid and a thickening agent, plus flavorings. It is an egg emulsion—the glorious liason of butter, vinegar or lemon juice, and egg yolks. Using clarified butter when making a Hollandaise is best because whole butter, which contains water and milk solids, can break the emulsion. Clarified butter is just pure butterfat, so it helps the emulsion remain stable.

Hollandaise sauce can be used on its own, but it is most often seen often atop eggs Benedict. Used on top of asparagus or poached salmon, it’s the base for equally beloved daughter sauce Béarnaise, in which we love to dip french fries. It’s particularly delicious on top of seafood, vegetables, and eggs.

Some well-known sauces made from Hollandaise: Foyot Sauce Dijon Sauce Maltaise Sauce Choron Sauce Béarnaise Sauce

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05 — Espagnole

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04 — Tomate This enriched tomato sauce is the French interpretation of the base most often appearing in the company of pasta. It resembles the traditional tomato sauce that we might use on pasta and pizza, but it’s got much more flavor and requires a few more steps to make. The key difference from most Italian versions is a starter roux of salt pork, butter, and flour. Never olive oil. One of its bestknown daughters is the sunny sauce Provençal, made fragrant with the addition of capers, olives and herbes de Provence.

First, we render salt pork and then sauté aromatic vegetables. Then we add tomatoes, stock, and a ham bone, and simmer it in the oven for a couple of hours. Cooking the sauce in the oven helps heat it evenly and without scorching.

Traditionally, the tomate sauce was thickened with roux, and some chefs still prepare it this way. But the tomatoes themselves are enough to thicken the sauce.

This rich brown sauce is a slightly more complex mother sauce. Espagnole is made by thickening brown stock with a roux. So in that sense, it’s similar to a velouté. However, the difference is that Espagnole is made with tomato purée and mirepoix for deeper color and flavor.

And, the brown stock itself is made from bones that have first been roasted in order to add color and flavor.

It is characterized by strong meat stock, thickened with a dark roux. When reduced further, Espagnole becomes the liquid gold known as demi-glace. Rarely used alone, this mother sauce is essential to preparing daughters such as peppery Sauce Poivrade and wine-splashed Sauce Bourguignonne, and both are excellent with big, beefy dishes.

THE STANDARDS

Here are some of the sauces made from velouté: Chasseur Sauce Madeira Sauce Bercy Sauce Lyonnaise Sauce Charcutière Sauce

Here are some of the sauces made from tomate: Spanish Sauce Creole Sauce Marinara Portuguese Sauce Provençale Sauce

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“I tried to dive into the pan, headfirst, to taste it with — Hélène Darroze my finger.”

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KC’S MASTERPIECE SPINACH ARTICHOKE DIP

Mix cream cheese, tomatoes, spinach butter over medium heat. Add 4 1 Melt and artichokes in a bowl. Once smooth, onions, red pepper and garlic and saute

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add to other mixture and mix well.

Spread mixture evenly in a prepared baking dish and bake at 350° for 2025 minutes. Serve with tortilla chips, crackers, or toasted baguette slices.

Recipe from Julie Hammer

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until tender.

In a bowl , blend flour and milk. Pour the mixture into the saucepan with vegetables and mix thoroughly.

Stir in salt, pepper, sherry, and hot pepper sauce. Mix well and heat until mixture is hot and bubbly.

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INGREDIENTS

Makes 8 Servings

¼ cup butter ½ cup white onion, chopped ¼ cup red pepper, chopped 4 cloves garlic, minced 1/3 cup quick mixing flour 2 Tbsp. sherry or wine 2 tsp. kosher salt, plus more to taste ¼ tsp. pepper, plus more to taste ¼ tsp. hot pepper sauce 12 oz. cream cheese, room temp 1 lb. finely diced tomatoes, drained 12 oz. frozen spinach, thawed & drained 12 oz. artichoke hearts, quartered & drained

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Curb your Appetizer One of the most popular dips out there today is spinach and artichoke dip.

There is not much information about the creation or the origin of this dip and why it has become the most famous dip today. One story relates that when American soldiers returned from the front after the Second World War, they wanted to find some flavors which they had become accustomed to in Europe, including spinach, artichokes, but also garlic, lemon, Parmesan, olive oil and even crusty bread.

By Mike Benayoun

Since then, a large number of restaurant chains adopted the famous dip and it has become one of the classic appetizers in the United States.

Moreover, the recipe from restaurants like Olive Garden, Cheesecake Factory, Applebee’s, TGIF, BJ’s, Ruby Tuesdays, Red Robin, UNO’s or Claim Jumper, have become coveted recipes and some of them still remain secret.

Although this dip contains vegetables, it is nonetheless very caloric. Moreover, its success is also partly due to famous brands of mayonnaise (Hellman’s, Miracle Whip), sour cream (Daisy, Knudsen) or cream cheese (Philadelphia) that helped boost their sales by including recipes on their packaging.

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THE TORTILLA CHIP’S OTHER HALF The Rise of Guacamole

By Rhoda Boone, Isabel Wright and Susannah Rigg

It’s almost a law of nature: Where there are parties, there is always guacamole. And no wonder. This classic dip has just five essential ingredients, and they combine to make an addictive mixture that pleases pretty much everyone.

Most folks usually stop right there. But the mild richness of avocado plays well with a range of flavors, so the Epicurious Test Kitchen decided to take the beloved dip on a world tour. We combined the flavors of Mexican street corn (grilled corn kernels, queso fresco, chili powder) with our basic guacamole recipe base, and of course it was a hit.

Then we went all-American with a BLT-style combo of chopped romaine heart, ripe tomato, and crispy bacon. Pretty pomegranate, toasted pumpkin seeds, and chopped mint made a stunning Middle Easterninspired dip. Many recipes include sour cream, so we tried a splash of coconut milk to add creaminess to our Thai guacamole, along with zesty grated ginger and herbaceous cilantro. Our Japanese rendition incorporates chopped edamame for texture, a touch of pungent wasabi, and drizzle of rich, nutty sesame oil. Diced cucumber, radish, and chopped dill made a fresh and bright version that actually tastes surprisingly Scandinavian.

Consider the avocado, one of the most delicious add-ons to any Latinx main dish, and the star of one of our favorite starters at Familia Kitchen: guacamole. Avocados are a delicioso and savory complement to your favorite tacos, caldo de pollo, rice and beans, salad or anything else abuela cooks up. (Or in my case, Abu.) This rough-skinned fruta (yes, it is a fruit) with its vivid-green interior, creamy texture, and nutty-mild flavor has exploded in popularity in the 21st century. To the point of becoming a social media sensation when laid prettily across a piece of breakfast toast. Muy Instagram-worthy, no?

Rivaling avocado toast in popularidad is what you get when you mash up an avocado to make a crowd-pleasing bowl of guacamole. Can’t you just taste it: that magical mixture of aguacate, onion, cilantro, lime, a little chile, a little salt, plus whatever else your family adds to it, heaped—yes heaped, because that’s how guac goes, you can’t just have un poquito—onto a crisp tortilla chip that’s just about to snap under the weight?

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Not only do they taste great, our favorite fruit is good for nuestra salud. It helps us fight heart disease and cancer, keep inflammation in check, and is loaded with the “good” LDL kind of cholesterol.

The avocado is also a recommended source for: dietary fiber, potassium, folate, Vitamin C, B6 and E. Guacamole is increasingly finding its way into non-Latinx dishes: spritzed over deep-fried tater tots, spread on grilled-cheese sandwiches, and subbed for mayo on burgers.

You’ve likely enjoyed it smooth and creamy, chunky and bulky, and stuffed full of jalapeños, cilantro, tomatoes and crema. Because: There is no wrong way to make or eat guacamole. All versions are delicioso. Who among us hasn’t uttered the words: “Can I have some guac with that?” and nodded, instantly. Because let’s be real, you know your burrito bowl needs it.

Before modern guacamole, there was a much simpler & also beloved version that was actually first mashed more than 500 years ago.

First, let’s start with the mighty avocado. Evidence found in caves in the Mexican state of Puebla, tell us that avocados, while wild and undomesticated, were eaten as far back as 8,000 BCE. There are a number of towns in Mexico named Ahuacatlán, meaning where the avocados abound, due to their numerous avocado trees and the Florentine Codex, depicts at least three types of avocado; aocatl, tlacacolactl and the quilaoactl in central Mexico alone.

The word for avocado (ahuacatl) was also used to refer to ‘testicles’, presumably due to the shape of the fruit. It is said that the erotic properties of avocados meant that Mexica (Aztec) women were forbidden from harvesting them.

While the idea of the avocado as an aphrodisiac no longer seems to stand, it is easy to see why. Avocados are rich in unsaturated fats, vitamins, protein, and fiber, giving those who eat them a good dose of energy, an energy that could easily be translated into a more erotic fervor. The avocado fruit and their leaves were also used by the Mexica for medicinal purposes, to treat many things including menstrual pain and coughs.

Given the importance of the avocado then, it is perhaps not surprising that the history of guacamole is rather mythical. Legend has it that the feathered-serpent god Quetzalcoatl, passed the recipe for guacamole down to the Toltec people, who were at their height in ancient Mexico between 900 and 1150 CE. From there, the recipe spread across great swathes of Mesoamerica.

We don’t have concrete evidence of the original recipe, but given what we know of the endemic crops, it was likely that it would have been a salsa of ripe avocados, chile and tomatoes, crushed together in a molcajete (a pestle and mortar made from volcanic rock, still used today). When the Spanish arrived in Mexico in the 1500s, they saw local Aztecs eating ahuacatl in a sauce they called ahuacamolli. After some shoddy translation, they gave us the word guacamole. Back then, the dish had just one ingredient: avocado, and the Spaniards were obsessed. Can we blame them?

The Aztecs were culinary pioneers, and we are still enjoying their ingenious dish.

So how did ahuacamolli evolve to the guac we know and love today—chock full of mixings? Early accounts claim the Aztecs were already adding tomatoes and chiles to their guacamole, since these products are native to the Americas. However, once the Europeans established the Columbian Exchange to trade between the Americas, Africa and Europe, new types of produce and foods hit the New World market. Items like garlic, onions, cilantro and limes—sound familiar, guacamole fans?

Over the centuries, the dish continued to grow in popularity, but it really exploded in the 1990s— likely because the U.S. lifted an 83-yearold ban on avocado imports (originally set to control avocado agricultural pests from entering the States). Also, the U.S. Latinx population grew by 14 million between 1990 and 2000, bringing with them a voracious appreciation for the recetas of our abuelas y antepasados.

Although guacamole originated there, Mexico is not the only place to grow native avocados. There are three domesticated varieties of the fruit, each with slight differences in appearance and flavor: Mexican, Guatemalan and West Indian.

That said, Mexico is one of the largest producers of avocados, supplying 32% of the world total. Here’s a fun avo fact: the oldest avocado pit ever found is 9,000 to 10,000 years old and was discovered in the Coxcatlan Cave in Puebla, Mexico. More fun stats: there are more than 500 types of avocados all over the world, and some avocado trees are even known to thrive for hundreds of years.

The Hass avocado, the one you mostly see in grocery stores, was not the kind the Aztecs used. It dates back to just the 1920s, when a postman bought regular avocado seeds, planted them, grafted a few varieties together, and one of the resulting seedlings yielded a totally new variety: the large-ish avocado we know today as the Hass (named after the postman himself, Rudolph Hass). Gracias, Rudy. We love your Hass.

And so does the world: they’re 95% of avocados consumed today.

Now that you know all there is to know about the star ingredient, you’re ready to make your own delicious guacamole. Here are a few of the rules you need to remember: Choose Your Avocados Wisely Too many guacamoles are marred by under-ripe (or overripe) avocados. Look for uniformly black, pebbly-skinned Hass avocados that yield slightly to gentle pressure with no mushy spots. If your avocados are not quite ripe, place them in a sealed paper bag at room temperature and wait a day or two; it’s worth it.

Resist the Urge to Overmix Guacamole can go from chunky and creamy to gluey and gloopy in a matter of seconds. Mash and stir just enough to combine the ingredients and achieve a scoopable consistency.

Protect Your Guac Guacamole is best when eaten the day it is prepared, but it can be stored overnight. To keep your guacamole from turning brown in the fridge, place it in an airtight plastic container and smooth out the surface. Pour a little water on top to cover the exposed dip. Cover with plastic wrap and seal with the lid. When ready to serve, pour out the water and give it a stir. If you are making guacamole with toppings like crispy bacon, you’ll want to add them just before serving.

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Think Outside the Chip Serve your creation with other dippers like whole grain or rice crackers, pita, sliced cucumber, or crudité, depending on what flavor profiles have inspired you.

Yum.

Que rico.

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the avocado flesh from the skins 1 Spoon and place it in a bowl. Lightly chop the avocado with the edge of the spoon, or press it with a potato masher. The avocado should still be chunky.

the onion, tomato, jalapeno, 2 Add lime juice, cilantro, salt and cumin to the avocado.

gently until just combined.

3 Stir Taste and adjust seasonings.

Transfer the guacamole to a molcajete or other serving dish.

with cotija and serve 4 Sprinkle with chips.

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Recipe from Kellie Hynes

INGREDIENTS 2 ripe avocados, halved and pitted 2 heaping Tbsp. diced white onion ½ cup diced fresh tomato, seeded 1 Tbsp. finely diced jalapeno, seeded 1 Tbsp. lime juice 2 Tbsp. chopped cilantro ¼ tsp. kosher salt, plus more to taste ¼ tsp. cumin 1 Tbsp. grated cotija cheese Tortilla chips, for serving Makes 2 Servings

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THE ULTIMATE GUACAMOLE

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CONTRIBUTORS

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DIP DIP HOORAY! You’ll definitely want fries with this.

By Dan Nosowitz

THE STANDARDS

There is something about a french fry that begs to be dipped. Maybe it’s the fact that they’re shaped sort of like a finger, which is the ideal form for dipping. Maybe it’s that modern potatoes—at least those outside the Andes Mountains—are mostly neutral in flavor, and can take to any combination of additions.

Or maybe it’s the external crispiness that cries out for a contrasting texture. There are dozens of well-known fry dips, all around the world, and they fall into several families—producing a web of unexpected global connections around the world.

You never really know where you are in the world until you dip a fry and take a bite.

But, before we get to that, let’s explore the much-disputed creation of this ubiquitous food stuff. Potatoes come from the Andean region of South America, and Andean peoples have not only thousands of different varieties of potato, but also many, many ways of preparing them. In the pre-Columbian Andes, and even for awhile after

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European contact, the most common methods were boiling, roasting, and a freeze-dry method that produces a product called chuños. Deepfrying, and cooking in oil in general, is a relatively new thing for potatoes.

Cooking in oil has a long history in certain parts of the ancient world. There are mentions of frying in Apicius, a Roman cookbook with recipes that probably date back to the first century. Olive oil was the medium of choice in the Mediterranean, and was plentiful, but for most of the world, fat and oil were prized and expensive.

Olives are unusual in that a simple press can extract their oil, whereas for most plants, you have to smash them, boil them, then quickly skim off the oil as it separates. It was expensive to render fat from animals, and both expensive and time-consuming to produce it from vegetables.

Outside the Mediterranean, up until the end of the Middle Ages or so, fat and oil were too important to be used simply to cook something else. They were treated more like meat: vital sources of calories, not something to be used to cook something else. Fat would be spread on starches like bread, or added to soups and stews.

That started to change around the time of the Industrial Revolution, when new machines and methods for extracting oil emerged. Roll mills, in which two rotating cylinders press material between them, started to be used to efficiently squeeze oil from plant matter in 1750. The hydraulic press was created in the late 1700s, then solvents followed in the mid-1800s (though the first solvents were almost certainly not fit for human consumption).

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How you choose to flavor your deep-fried starch says a lot about who you are, and how interrelated the world cuisine has become.

This is all to say that deep-frying, which requires a great deal of oil, is a mostly modern method—so french fries are a mostly modern dish. A common legend states that french fries originated in the Namur region of Belgium, where locals usually fried fish. One particularly vicious winter, the legend goes, their river froze solid, and so desperate and hungry locals cut potatoes into small, fish-shaped pieces, and fried those. That story comes from a 1781 manuscript wherein the author states that “this practice goes back more than a hundred years already.” But it’s incredibly unlikely that anyone was even eating potatoes in Belgium in 1681, let alone using wildly expensive oils to cook them.

Culinary historian Pierre Leclerq instead suggests that french fries—which he clarifies as being deep-fried, and not shallow-fried in a pan like home fries—probably came around in the mid-1800s, following the widespread availability of plant-based oils around Europe. These likely were first sold as street food in Belgium, France, or both. It’s also likely that the very concept of deep-frying potatoes evolved independently elsewhere, too. After all, once oil was made to be more affordable, why use its browning and crisping abilities on just about everything?

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From there, the deep-fried potato— usually, but not always, in stick form—spread around the world. And so did its dips. Each fry dip is reflective of both local tastes and colonial conquests, new technologies and old traditions.

The french fry is the medium through which you can see the parts that make up a modern culture.

How you choose to flavor that most fundamental of snacks—deep-fried starch—says an awful lot about who you are. And it also shows how strangely interrelated world cuisine has become.

The state of the french fry dip in 2019 is wild: globalization has brought ketchup to the entire world, sure, but it’s also led to an almost impossibly large array of regional sauces and combinations. With that in mind, it doesn’t really make sense to break up the fry dips along geographic lines; the United States, dip-wise, has more in common with the Philippines than it does with Canada, for example. The world’s fry dips are better sorted by family.

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It shouldn’t be a surprise who the title

#1 DIPPING SAUCE DIPPED IN

belongs to.

The Ketchup Family

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“Ketchup” is a Malay word used to describe a Chinese sauce consisting mostly of pickled fish.

The word and vague concept of a sweet-and-sour sauce made it to the United Kingdom, where it was made with mushrooms, and then to the United States, where it was made with that most glorious of New World fruits, the tomato.

Where the primary attribute of the Creamy Family is its fat content, the Ketchup Family is sweet, sour, and sweet again. Standard tomato ketchup is ubiquitous in the United States but pretty widely available elsewhere, with minor variations in sweetness, sourness, and acidity.

Like mayo, ketchup has a curry-spiked variety, most associated with Germany, and particularly with Berlin street food, though it’s also popular in Denmark, the Netherlands, and, yet again, Belgium. But ketchup doesn’t have to be made with tomatoes. Modern ketchup, really, is a fruit puree kicked up with vinegar, sugar, and spices. In the Philippines, banana ketchup (often dyed red) is a common dip. In Belgium, a version of a South Asian pickle is also common—something like a very sweet relish. It’s not pureed, like tomato ketchup, but given its status as a sweet-sour vegetable, it’s at least a ketchup cousin, maybe.

Throughout Southeast Asia there are chili ketchups, to be enjoyed blended or separately, depending on the diner’s taste. McDonald’s in Thailand, for example, has “American ketchup” and “chili sauce,” the latter of which is described as orange and tangy, while the former is more of what we are used to in the US.

MAKES IT “AMERICAN” Heinz, the American company perhaps most associated with ketchup, didn’t get into the game until 1876, seven years after Henry John Heinz set up the company to sell horseradish using his mother’s recipe. After his initial company went bankrupt, he launched a new one and began bottling tomato “ketchup,” spelled that way to distinguish it from other catsup brands.

From here, ketchup took on a uniquely American character and began its career as not only a universal condiment but a mass-produced brandname article of trade that could last indefinitely on the shelf, be shipped around the world and used in the many ways never imagined by its creators.

Like so many of the other products, it became emblematic of American culture: quick, easy, convenient and too sweet but also adaptable to any gastronomic context – and a bit addictive. Ketchup became the quick fix that seemed to make any dish perk up instantly, from meatballs to scrambled eggs.

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Brown sauce, a United Kingdom favorite, is a little trickier to parse. It looks like gravy (more on that family later), but is fundamentally a ketchup: tomato base, with vinegar and sugar.

What separates it from standard ketchup is the additions: dates, raisins, tamarind, or any combination thereof, along with spices, a bit like what Americans consider steak sauce.

The key attribute of ketchup and its relatives, I think, is sugar. Ketchup has about four grams per tablespoon—more than vanilla ice cream (also a pretty good dip for fries). Ketchup, like mayo, has some acidity and an excellent viscosity for clinging to fries, but no other sauce on this list is anywhere near as sweet.

29 The Vinegar Family

This one usually comes back to the United Kingdom and places where its influence is felt.

Probably the most iconic, though by no means the only, accompaniment to fries (chips) in the British Empire is malt vinegar, made from fermented beer, which also tastes good on the fried fish that often accompany them.

Vinegar fries are also fairly common in Anglophone Canada, as one might expect, as well as South Africa, where the British colonial influence is also felt. But they have a rather unusual way to do it: the South African slap chip, or slaptjip. This dish consists of a fry that’s been slathered in vinegar and salt and then, bizarrely, covered and allowed to steam—softening the fry and essentially taking away one of the key attributes of a proper fry, its crispy exterior.

The vinegar family is a curious one, as vinegar is, technically, a lousy condiment.

The vinegar gets swiftly absorbed by the fry, meaning it can be difficult to taste if it rests for even a moment, and, of course, it tends to make a fry very soggy. The upside is a clean, crisp flavor, with no need to add fat or sugar, like the other families; just straight-up acid to counterbalance the oil.

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The Mayo Family

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This family of fry dips includes mayonnaise and its related sauces. Mayonnaise is, probably, an early-19th-century French version of aioli, which in its traditional egg-free form was found around the Southwestern Mediterranean and probably has its roots in ancient Rome. Straight-up mayo is common as a fry dip in Belgium, France, and the Netherlands—perhaps suggesting it is a mother dip of sorts, though only one of several—and is widely used today all by itself. But there are dozens of varieties in this family, often much more exotic than a simple whipped white emulsion.

Aioli or allioli—now often used as a shorthand for a garlic-heavy mayo sauce, though don’t tell that to the Spanish—is common on patatas bravas in certain parts of Spain. The Dutch makes patatje oorlog, a dish of fries with, weirdly, both mayo and a peanut-y satay sauce. (It translates to “war fries.”) Remoulade, a mayo heavily seasoned with spices and often pickles, is common in Northern Europe and Scandinavia.

Then there are the spiked mayos: curry mayo (again, Belgium and the Netherlands), fritten sauce (heavily mustard-spiked mayo, from Germany), and, well, many other Belgian creations. “Brasil sauce” has mayo, pureed pineapple, and curry powder. Koen Smets, a behavioral economist who was born and raised in Belgium and replied to a very vague tweet on the subject, says, “Most chip shops have an array of sauces, rarely less than a dozen, and often more than 25.”

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This particular family is rich, mild, and lightly acidic. These creamy sauces are a foil for salt—fatty, with an excellent consistency for dipping, but no overpowering flavor. Devotees might

say that it accents, rather than muscles out, the flavor of the fry itself. Those devotees might also scorn lovers of some of the other major families, and vice versa.

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The Gravy Family

THE STANDARDS

Obviously the most famous member of the Gravy Family is the Quebec favorite, poutine, a mess of fries topped with cheese curds and brown gravy, usually a poultry stock thickened with flour or cornstarch. It’s salty, savory, and a little peppery.

The American version of this is disco fries, most often associated with New Jersey, which replaces the cheese curds with shredded mozzarella.

Gravies are essentially thick meat sauces, and in practice resemble a coating more than a dip.

There are other meaty sauces for fries, too, such as chili cheese fries in the United States, or poutine italienne in Quebec, which is basically bolognese sauce. These are all really more dishes than dips, as a proper dip should be served alongside the fries, rather than on top. But these variations are saucy and vital to understanding how fries are eaten. You might notice that these meaty fry dish–sauces are most common in much cold regions. Surely there is a connection between the brutally cold Montreal winter and the desire to eat something truly decadent and ridiculous like poutine.

Interestingly, these are the only sauces served warm or hot; all the others are either room temperature or cold. This is mostly a technical issue; gravy congeals as it cools, which is pretty gross. Poutine cannot be eaten the following morning. (Trust me, I’ve tried.)

Now, here’s where things start to get interesting.

The Powder Family Heavily flavored powders that function like flavorenhancing dips are common in Japan, India, the Philippines, and elsewhere. Sometimes fries are pre-spiced, like American “curly fries,” both curly and distinguished by a slightly spicy, paprikatinted spice blend. Masala fries, from India, are like this, too.

In Japan, furaido potato are served with various powder seasonings and a bag; you add the fries and powder to a bag and shake the whole thing. Together they’re called furu pote, with common flavors of seaweed, butter soy, sesame, and more. Even McDonald’s sells them in Japan, as “Shake Shake Fries.”

The powder method is a highly efficient way to get bonus flavor onto a french fry. The powder is highly concentrated, so you don’t need much; it’s dehydrated, so it lasts forever; and because it’s dry, you don’t have to worry about soggification. On the other hand, you also don’t get any texture or temperature difference from a powder, but there’s no reason you can’t also dip a powdered fry.

It’s no particular surprise that the bestknown powders come from Japan and India.

Japanese cuisine is full of flavor-adding powders, including furikake (sesame seeds, seaweed, sugar, salt, sometimes other stuff) and shichimi togarashi (chili flakes, dried orange peel, sesame seed, ginger, seaweed, sometimes other stuff).

Both of those, come to think of it, would be great on fries. India, too, is big on adding powders, in the form of spice blends, to pretty much any dish, from salads and popcorn to fried snacks and sandwiches.

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The Outlier Family There are various deep-fried potato-stick dishes around the world that don’t fit cleanly into these categories. The Bulgarian kartofi sus sirene is fries topped with shredded sirene cheese, similar to feta. In Peru, fries are sauteed with meats; lomo saltado is with strips of beef, salchipapas with, usually, slices of hot dog. Neither choice is really a dip, but both impart a great deal of flavor.

Then there’s the matter of reverse-colonial curry sauce, popular in the United Kingdom. It is made by frying garlic, ginger, onion, tomato paste, and spices before pureeing—like a Ketchup by definition, but it is not as sweet and is served hot, so it eats more like a Gravy. It offers something of both types of sauce.

Deserving of special notice is Romanian mujdei, a garlic sauce that can be in either the Creamy Family or the Vinegar Family. The primary ingredient of this sauce is garlic, smashed in a mortar and pestle and mixed with oil (usually sunflower), sometimes with lemon juice or vinegar, and sometimes with sour cream. It’s simple, but still defies categorization.

35 Similar to mujdei is the Cuban mojo, made with crushed garlic, olive oil, maybe oregano, and citrus juice, most often bitter orange. But it is more likely to be eaten with a different fried starch, like yucca or plantain.

And finally, perhaps the greatest outlier of all. In Vietnam, french fries are often served with a side of butter and some white sugar. This is not so strange when you consider that fatiness is a defining trait of mayo and sweetness a defining trait of ketchup, and that just about every other staple food around the world can be eaten either savory, sweet, or both. Rice can be made into mochi or rice pudding; corn features in puddings and corn cakes; wheat can, obviously, be made into cake and about a million other treats. But the potato is hardly ever served sweet (Ed: A salty, crispy fry dunked in a cold, creamy milkshake is “chef ’s kiss.”), though there’s no particular reason why. Hat’s off to Vietnam for just going for it.

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A CHILI SAUCE

TO CROW ABOUT

Keepin’ it hot, hot hot!

By Nick Ut

After-hours calls to Huy Fong Foods, here in the suburbs of the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles, are intercepted by an answering machine. One recent day, there were 14 messages blinking when Donna Lam, the operations manager, hit “play.”

A woman told of smearing Huy Fong’s flagship product, Tuong Ot Sriracha (Sriracha Chili Sauce), on multigrain snack chips. A man proclaimed the purée of fresh red jalapeños, garlic powder, sugar, salt and vinegar to be “the bomb,” and thanked Ms. Lam’s employers for “much joy and pleasure.”

Another caller, hampered by a slight slur, botched the pronunciation of the product name before asking whether discount pricing might be available. Finally, he blurted, “I love rooster sauce!” (A strutting rooster, gleaming white against a backdrop of the bright red sauce, dominates Huy Fong’s trademark green-capped clear plastic squeeze bottles.)

The lure of Asian authenticity is part of the appeal. Some American consumers believe sriracha (properly pronounced SIR-rotch-ah) to be a Thai sauce. Others think it is Vietnamese.

The truth is that sriracha, as manufactured by Huy Fong Foods, may be best understood as an American sauce, a polyglot purée with roots in different places and peoples.

It’s become a sleeve trick for chefs like Jean-Georges Vongerichten. At the restaurant Perry St., in New York City, Mr. Vongerichten’s rice-cracker-crusted tuna with citrus sauce has always relied on the sweet, garlicky heat of sriracha. More recently, he has honed additional uses. “The other night, I used some of the greencap stuff with asparagus,” Mr. Vongerichten said.

“It’s well balanced, and perfect in a hollandaise.”

In Houston, at the restaurant Reef, Bryan Caswell, a veteran of Mr. Vongerichten’s kitchens, stirs sriracha into the egg wash he uses to batter fried foods, from crab cakes to oysters to onion rings. “It’s not heavily fermented, it’s not acidic,” said Mr. Caswell, who has won quite a devoted following for the sriracha rémoulade he often serves with such fried dishes. “It burns your body, not your tongue.”

Sriracha is a key ingredient in street food: The two Kogi trucks that travel the streets of Los Angeles, vending kimchi-garnished tacos to the young, hip and hungry, provide customers with just one condiment, Huy Fong sriracha.

Recently, Huy Fong’s sriracha found its place in the suburbs. Applebee’s has begun serving fried shrimp with a mix of mayonnaise and Huy Fong sriracha. They followed P. F. Chang’s, another national chain, which began using it in 2000, and now features battered and fried green beans with a sriracha-spiked dipping sauce, as well as a refined riff on what both Applebee’s and P. F. Chang’s call dynamite shrimp.

For Mr. Tran, of Chinese heritage but born in Vietnam, neither sriracha-spiked hollandaise nor sriracha-topped tacos with kimchi translate easily. “I made this sauce for the Asian community,” Mr. Tran said one recent afternoon, seated at headquarters, near a rooster-shaped crystal sculpture.

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“I knew, after the Vietnamese resettled here, that they would want their hot sauce for their pho,” a beef broth and noodle soup that is a de facto national dish of Vietnam. “But I wanted something that I could sell to more than just the Vietnamese,” he continued. “After I came to America, after I came to Los Angeles, I remember seeing Heinz 57 ketchup and thinking: ‘The 1984 Olympics are coming. How about I come up with a Tran 84, something I can sell to everyone?’ ” Multicultural appeal was engineered into the product: the ingredient list on the back of the bottle is written in Vietnamese, Chinese, English, French and Spanish. And serving suggestions include pizzas, hot dogs, hamburgers and, for French speakers, pâtés. “I know it’s not a Thai sriracha,” Mr. Tran said. “It’s my sriracha.”

From 1975 onward, Mr. Tran made sauces from peppers grown by his older brother on a farm just beyond Long Binh, a village north of what was then Saigon. The most popular was an oil-based sauce, perfumed by galangal, a pungent relative of ginger.

THE STANDARDS

“I know it’s not a Thai sriracha,” Mr. Tran said.

“It’s my sriracha.”

Though he never devised a formal name for his products, Mr. Tran decorated each cap with a rooster, his astrological sign. Production was family focused. Mr. Tran ground the peppers.

His father-in-law washed the sauce containers, reusing Gerber baby food jars obtained from American servicemen. His brother-in-law filled the jars with sauce. Itinerant jobbers bought the sauces from Mr. Tran, and sold them to shops and other informal restaurants.

By 1979, many of the Tran family’s friends were leaving Vietnam. “I had enough money saved to buy our way out,” he said. To limit potential losses, Mr. Tran split the family into four groups: One group went to Indonesia, another to Hong Kong. A third went to Malaysia, and a fourth to the Philippines.

“I was in Boston,” Mr. Tran recalled. “My brother-in-law was in Los Angeles. When we talked on the phone, I asked him, ‘Do they have red peppers in Los Angeles?’ He said yes. And we left.” “I landed the first week of January in 1980,” he added. “By February, I was making sauce.”

He figured that immigrants of Vietnamese ancestry would stock his sriracha at pho shops. He hoped that the occasional American consumer might squirt it on hot dogs and hamburgers. He could never have expected what he found, one recent afternoon, as he trolled the Internet in search of what fans of his sauce have wrought.

The Tran family has gladly taken all of this in stride. “We’re happy to see these chefs use our sriracha,” said Huy Fong’s president, William Tran, the 33-year-old son of its founder. “But we still sell 80 percent of our product to Asian companies, for distribution through Asian channels. That’s the market that we know.

“That’s the market we want to serve.”

THE MANY WONDERFUL WAYS TO ENJOY SRIRACHA Sriracha is an extremely versatile and useful sauce.

Here are just a few ways you can use this classic sauce to elevate your next meal!

List by Matt Bray

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CONTRIBUTORS

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How one creamy & peppery salad dressing became one of America’s unique loves.

By Julia Moskin

RANCH NATION

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As a young republic, our nation embraced the dressings of many lands: Italian, French, Russian and the magical Thousand Islands. But with the creation — and inexorable rise — of ranch, we have forged the one true American dressing.

Invented in the 1950s, ranch is now far and away the most popular salad dressing in the country, according to a 2017 study by the Association for Dressings and Sauces, an industry group.

(Forty percent of Americans named ranch as their favorite dressing; its nearest competitor, Italian, came in at 10 percent.) And it has spread far beyond salad. It is a routine dip for chicken wings, baby carrots, French fries, tortilla chips and mozzarella sticks. It is incorporated into American classics like macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, potato salad and Thanksgivingturkey stuffing. And it is even drizzled over tacos, Tater Tots, casseroles and — perhaps most controversially — pizza.

Unlike, say, Green Goddess or Thousand Island, ranch dressing has inspired fandom beyond food: Sightings include bottles of ranchflavored soda, ranch fountains at parties, ranch tattoos and memes, even ranch-and-pizza earring sets. It stars in countless videos posted on YouTube by ranch superfans, who pour it on uni, instant ramen, ice cream and more. “Bring me my ranch dressing hose!” commands Homer Simpson, rejecting the attentions of concubines, in a famous dream sequence on “The Simpsons.”

What makes ranch ranch? It’s a combination of creaminess ( from buttermilk, sour cream, sometimes mayonnaise) and herbaceousness (often parsley, thyme, dill), plus a long pull of allium (onion and garlic) and a shot of black pepper. Ranch seasoning eliminates the creamy element, making it a dry spice mix like any other, ready to be added to Chex Mix, shaken onto popcorn or mixed into biscuits. A n y home cook can make a lovely, full-flavored ranch dressing using real garlic, freshly ground black pepper and bright green herbs. But the particular

flavor of traditional ranch can only be achieved with the dry versions of all those aromatics: garlic and onion powder, dried herbs, powdered pepper and buttermilk.

Steve Henson, a plumber from the tiny village of Thayer, Neb., came up with the dressing mix around 1950, during a stint in Anchorage as a construction worker, where he also served as an occasional cook for the crew. In that part of the world, perishable ingredients like fresh herbs, garlic and onions, and dairy products were not easy to come by. By 1954, he and his wife, Gayle, had moved to California and bought a ramshackle property called Sweetwater Ranch, in the San Marcos Pass above Santa Barbara, Calif.

They renamed it Hidden Valley, and opened it as a guest ranch. But according to their son, Nolan Henson, the place became even more popular as a steakhouse, with Steve’s dressing a favorite souvenir.

“It was all dry ingredients the way my dad made it,” said Nolan Henson, now 74, who grew up on the ranch. (Gayle died in 1993, Steve in 2007.)

“People carried it home in mayonnaise jars,” Mr. Henson said. “Seemed like we were always mixing it, and we put it on everything: steaks, vegetables, potatoes.”

Overwhelmed by demand, in the late 1950s the Hensons began packaging the dry ingredients in an envelope that could be presented or mailed to customers, who would add their own buttermilk and mayonnaise at home — much like a boxed cake mix, which was introduced to the mass market by Pillsbury in 1948. The product was happily a runaway success.

“The dressing pretty much took over the ranch,” said Mr. Henson, who spent many hours as a child filling seasoning packets.

With that, ranch began to take over the nation, moving from the West to the Midwest and occupying salad bars through the 1970s; a shelfstable version arrived on supermarket shelves in 1983. But according to Abby Reisner, the author of the new cookbook “Ranch” (Dovetail Press), ranch madness didn’t go national until 1986, with

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the introduction of Cool Ranch Doritos, tortilla chips that were infused with a distinctly creamy, oniony bite. Ranch was already popular on its own, but the combination of cream and crunch in one bite — a fusion of dip and chip — turned out to be a masterstroke.

Cool Ranch Doritos opened the door to ranch as a seasoning beyond salad. It began to show up frequently as a dip for French fries (replacing ketchup), for chips (instead of salsa) and for Buffalo chicken wings (pushing aside blue cheese dressing). It is through chicken wings that ranch made the transition to pizza.

Tim McIntyre, a spokesman for Domino’s, said the company added chicken wings to its menu in 1994. Ranch was sent along with each order of wings, but Americans quickly began dunking pizza in the stuff. “That’s what I remember from birthday parties when I was young, and on late nights in college,” said Ms. Reisner, 25. “Ranch and pizza, pizza and ranch.”

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Fast Food Ranch Ranked Worst To Best List by Kori Ellis

Americans put ranch on everything — from chicken wings to pizza.

The fast food industry has taken notice and now just about every restaurant has ranch available for whatever you wish to dip in it. Some is enchanting, while others are downright disgusting. In this definitive list, we rank the ranch sauces from worst to best.

Creamy 14 McDonald’s Ranch Sauce

13 Wendy’s Buttermilk Ranch 12 Arby’s Ranch

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11 Taco Time Ranch Dressing 10 KFC Buttermilk Ranch Garden Herb 9 Chick-fil-A Ranch Sauce King 8 Burger Ranch

7 Taco Cabana Salsa Ranch

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6 Domino’s Ranch

5 Jimmy John’s Kickin’ Ranch in the Box Buttermilk 4 Jack House Sauce Jalapeno 3 Whataburger Ranch

2 Popeyes Blackened Ranch And a drumroll for the number one fast food ranch…

1

Wingstop Ranch

The best fast food ranch available is undoubtedly Wingstop Ranch.

This sauce is legendary and everything about it is pure perfection.

First of all, it’s rich, thick, and sticks to your wings without fail.

You will just need to dip each wing once and the ranch will stay in place as you devour the wing.

Wingstop Ranch is even so popular that customers go simply order the “ranch by the pound” and walk out of the restaurant without any wings. Although it’s difficult to leave a Wingstop without some wings, this ranch is good enough that it’s entirely understandable.

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From This list the editor: because is incomplete t belongs he real #1 spot to the su perio Culver’s R anch <3 r

TOP 14 FAST FOOD RANCHES RANKED

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Of course, other members of her generation agree.

“It’s kind of like a whole extra course,” said Alvin Lim, 31, a culinary student in Providence, R.I. “You eat your pizza, but then you’re probably still hungry, so you stick the crusts in the ranch.”

Ranch on pizza provoked controversy at first, but it is now settled law in much of the country (outside the Northeast, at least). Domino’s offers pizza already topped with ranch dressing, as do many other pizza makers. In March, a successful pop-up restaurant in Portland, Ore., called Ranch, became a permanent restaurant entirely dedicated to pizza with ranch. Anthony Falco, a noted pizza authority in Brooklyn, took to Instagram: “This is what happens when you legalize cannabis,” he teased.

When the chef Matt Hyland and his ranch-loving wife, Emily Hyland, opened the first Emily pizza restaurant in Brooklyn, the housemade ranch they drizzled over certain pies was considered bizarre by many New Yorkers. “The thing is, pizza is a little bit tangy and a little bit spicy,” Mr. Hyland said. “Something creamy and herbal rounds it out.” The Hylands now have four restaurants in the city, so apparently their taste for ranch is shared by locals.

Ranch is most popular in the Midwest, according to the Association of Dressings and Sauces. Twisted Ranch, a restaurant in St. Louis that serves 31 different ranch dressings, opened in 2015 and has generated three-hour waits. (It moved to a larger space this year.)

“We really believed in ranch from the beginning,” said Jim Hayden, one of the restaurant’s founders. “It wasn’t just a gimmick.” Every dish on the menu contains some form of ranch: the house

“We had really believed in ranch from the beginning,” said Jim Hayden.

Bloody Mary is made with ranch-infused vodka and has a ranch-salt rim on the glass. To create new dishes, said Mr. Hayden, he and his fellow founder, Chad Allen, start by dreaming up a new ranch flavor — like Greek, with feta cheese and oregano, or curry, with yogurt and Indian spices.

“We lead with the ranch, then we build a dish around it,” he said.

Ranch may be a modern phenomenon, but its flavor profile isn’t new at all. Many classic condiments also combine cream (or creaminess) with alliums (the family that includes garlic, onion, leeks and chives). Middle Eastern toum, Mediterranean aioli, Caesar dressing, French onion dip and the pasta sauce “Alfredo” served at places like Olive Garden all have the same profile: a mild, cooling base set against the heat of strong, pungent alliums.

That coolness is what makes ranch an appealing partner for food that is spicy or charred or deep-fried, and many of America’s favorite foods have those flavors front and center. (In case you don’t believe that ranch flavor represents the pinnacle of American culinary achievement, consider that ranch dressing is already called “American dressing” in many European supermarkets, and that the Doritos flavor we know as “Cool Ranch” goes by “Cool American.”)

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“We lead with the ranch, then build a dish around it,” he said.

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Despite the love for ranch we’ve presented so far, not everyone feels this way.

Ben Adler goes as far to say “Ranch dressing is what’s wrong with America.”

Ranch dressing, the salad dressing invented from buttermilk, is having a moment.

It’s the kind of topping serious chefs correctly disdained for decades as extravagant and trashy. But now, animated by a kind of faddish philistinism, professional food connoisseurs are giving it another look. Today’s hip chefs revel in finding ways to profit from glorified junk food, from cronuts to little $8 jars of artisanal bacon mayonnaise, and the food critics cheer them on, as if this were a worthy endeavor. The current ethos is something like this: The more lowbrow, the more drenched in fat a dish is, the better.

Ranch Dressing is What’s Wrong with America

By Ben Adler

It isn’t. There are three main problems with ranch dressing: First, it’s disgusting. It tastes like exactly what it is, which is milk that’s halfway rotten. Why would anyone want to take something that they would throw out if they unexpectedly smelled it in their fridge and put that on their salad? The gooey goop doesn’t even spread well when tossed. Since 1992, ranch dressing has been America’s most popular salad dressing, and it currently has twice the market share of its nearest competitor, blue cheese dressing, which is basically a better, more flavorful version of ranch. So Americans have bad taste, as is their right. But the whole point of expensive restaurants that get glowing reviews is to expand a diner’s horizons with something better than the stuff he or she picks up at the supermarket.

Second, diners are using it incorrectly.

Putting ranch on salad at least has a rationale: Many people don’t appreciate vegetables and feel compelled to slather everything in processed fat.

Fine. But why would anyone use it on french fries?

Because deep-fried food isn’t greasy and caloric enough? And putting it on pizza — a horrifying, common practice — is insane because pizza is already dripping with mozzarella. It’s completely redundant, wildly unhealthy and disrespectful to any halfway decent pizza, the chef who made it and to the Italian people who gave it to us. (One pizzeria in Houston, owned by Italian Americans, has banned ranch dressing.) Pizza does not need a dipping sauce, because it’s already perfect. If it needs ranch to improve the taste, it’s bad pizza, and you shouldn’t eat it at all.

Finally, our vulgar extravagance is going to destroy the planet and starve the global poor.

Like meat, dairy produces more local and climate pollution than most plant-based foods. Dairy cows also require more land, water and other resources than grains and vegetables. Unless we moderate our habits, we will run out of resources to feed the Earth’s 7 billion-and-growing population and cause massive climate disruption. Here’s an easy way to cut back: Don’t slather milk products on foods already awash in them.

Putting ranch dressing on pizza springs from the same idiotic thinking — that more milk fat on everything is always better — that inspires such revolting innovations as Pizza Hut’s new Grilled Cheese Stuffed Crust Pizza. The dish, which contains “extra gooey cheddar and mozzarella cheese” in the crust and toasted bread crumbs and melted butter on top, prompted Thrillist to enthuse, “It simply contains way too much cheese for any mere mortal to resist.”

Emily, a restaurant mentioned in the New York article for offering ranch dressing on one of their highly-regarded pizzas, happens to be near my apartment, so I’ve been a few times. It’s great — if you want to stand for 25 minutes in a dark, cramped entryway waiting for a table and then pay $25 for a personal pizza. And judging from the patrons waiting in line, a shocking number of inexplicably skinny young people do.

The ingredients may be organic, locally sourced and so on. But no matter where you raise the beef for your burger, it’s still less healthy and more carbon-intensive than vegetables — and that’s before you put ranch dressing on the fries.

Socially responsible eating isn’t knowing the name of the heritage breed of pig your ribs came from. It’s actually minimizing your impact on the planet.

How about, in exchange for feeding tastemakers willing to line up and pay handsomely, chefs serve something that won’t kill their clientele or do gratuitous harm to the planet? They should do the work of finding interesting flavors instead of just asking what they serve at Buffalo Wild Wings and cooking a twee version of it.

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Her grandmother always used the same words to described that first momentous taste:

“It took off in my mouth like a freight train.”

The modern passion for ranch has not gone unnoticed by ambitious chefs. At the Charter Oak in the Napa Valley, an informal new offshoot of the luxurious Restaurant at Meadowood, the chefs Christopher Kostow and Katianna Hong serve an appetizer described on the menu as “raw vegetables from our farm, fermented soy dip.” It is essentially crudités with ranch dressing.

“It’s very different from ranch in the way that it’s made,” Ms. Hong said; the dip contains two kinds of Asian preserved soy beans, as well as crème fraîche and chive-infused oil. “But it’s creamy and tangy, and it has salt and umami, and it definitely reminds people of ranch.”

While it comes with vegetables, she said, customers are always angling for more dip to eat with fries, with bread and with chicken.

Many other chefs are also bending ranch to their creative will. The Middle Eastern restaurant Samesa in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, serves a ranch made with labneh (a thick yogurt), alongside chicken wings crusted with the spice mix za’atar.

Parcel 32 in Charleston, S.C., sends out “cumin buttermilk herb aioli,” a reworked ranch, with hot and spicy quail. At Compère Lapin in New Orleans, the chef Nina Compton has invented a complex plate of jerk-roasted corn on the cob, topped with crunchy ranch-infused bread crumbs. Meanwhile, back in Santa Barbara, the Hidden Valley Ranch is no more. Steve Henson sold the brand to the Clorox company in 1972 for $8 million; in 2017, Hidden Valley products (there are more than 50) took in over $450 million, according to industry analysts. But the nearby Cold Spring Tavern, the first place outside the ranch to serve the dressing, is still open — and has been since 1868, when it began life as a stagecoach stop. (It has hosted guests as diverse as Susan B. Anthony, Charles M. Schulz and Anthony Perkins.)

Steven Henson came over one day with a handful of dried herbs and spices, said Debbie Wilson-Potts, the tavern’s unofficial historian and a granddaughter of Audrey Covington, who was the owner then. Her grandmother always used the same words to described that first momentous taste: “It took off in my mouth like a freight train.”

The restaurant still continues to serve the original dressing.

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“I think she would come back from the grave and haunt us if we changed it,” Ms. Wilson-Potts said.

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Writing

Cover — Polina Tankilevitch 0 — Shreyak Singh 4 — Carla Martinesi 5-10 — Kate Berry 8 — Mae Mu 11 — Victoria Shes 13 — Jaclyn Bell 14 — Nadine Primeau 17 — Rafael Arizaga 20-21 — Katarzyna Hurova 20 — The BlackRabbit 21 — Tangerine Newt 22-23 — Fernada Martinez 24 — McCain Foods 28 — Alena Shekhovtoca 29 — Brent Hofacker 30 — Craving Small Bites 31 — Kate Ive 32 — Chichilicious 32 — Lauren West 33 — Jay Gajjar 36 — Hellman’s US 37 — Laura Murray 38 — Nick Ut 40 — Gina Ferazz 42 — Oldways 43 — Tangerine West 43 — Love and Lemons 45 — Elena Veselova 47 — iHeartPublix 50 — Abby Mercer 51 — Lauren Healey 52 — Brent Hofacker 52 — Elena Elisseva 52 — Sinclair Adams 54 — Oleksandra Naumenko 55 — 5PH

4 — Danilo Alfaro 4 — Shane Mitchel 12 — Julie Hammer 13 — Mike Benayoun 15 — Rhoda Boone 15 — Isabel Wright 15 — Susannah Kigg 18 — Kellie Hyunes 22 — Dan Nosowitz 44 — Julie Moskino 48 — Kori Ellis 53 — Ben Adler

ISSUE ONE CONTRIBUTORS

THOSE WHO DIPPED IN, THANK YOU

THE STANDARDS

DIPPED IN VOL. 1 NO. 1