Which Nobel Prize should the inventor of Ranch Dressing receive?

[ready29003]

I have come to the conclusion that Ranch Dressing belongs on the list of the most important inventions of Human history. My list would probably go:

wheel
gunpowder
Indoor Plumbing
Electricity
Ranch dressing
The internal combustion engine
The airplane
The computer

But I can’t decide which Nobel Prize should be awarded for this break through item, which has changed the way people eat everything from salad to chicken tenders to hamburgers.

What do you think? How would you alter my list?

[grump]

Ranch dressing upsets my stomach. So I certainly wouldn’t nominate the inventor for a Nobel.
My list would include the following:

-  Miracle Bra
-  Thong Bikini

[UrbanChic]

I’d say the inventor of mass produced Ranch Style Dressing belongs in the same category with the inventors of:

Kraft “cheese” singles
Wonder bread
Square ham (you know, the kind in the deli section of your market)
Boxed macaroni and cheese
Miracle Whip

[lieu]

I’d say the one for poetry.

It makes all the ingredients in my salad rhyme with each other.

[Isabelle]

I think you should add:

the remote control

the internet (perhaps Gore should get the nobel prize for developing it)

2-ply toilet paper

coca cola

indoor plumbing

thong bikini

tampons

[Flymaster]

I’ve always felt that categories where nothing much happened should be used to give Nobel prizes to people who don’t really fit in any of the current categories.

Slow year for books? Dave Thomas gets a Nobel Prize in Literature for the Spicy Chicken Sandwich.

Middle of WWIII? Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to Mark Sandman, for Morphine’s Cure for Pain.

I just realized, however, that most of the people that I would give such awards to are dead

[vibrotronica]

“And the Nobel Prize for Creamy Goodness goes to…”

[Revtim]

So what ranch was this salad dressing invented on?

[Zenster]

The chrome-plated plastic one.

Preferrably sealed in a blister pack with hang tag and marked down to $1.[sup]95[/sup] due to slow sales.

[ElvisL1ves]

How Stuff Works is your friend, too, not just Google. The page of salad dressing origins says it was invented at Hidden Valley Ranch in the 1950’s.

Their own site, after clicking on “About Us”, reveals our benefactor’s name to be Steve Henson, its then co-owner. Probably the best way to express appreciation to Mr. Henson and his heirs is to keep buying Hidden Valley Ranch products.

[Ludovic]

The auditorium is filling up with…I know, Ranch dressing.

[Hugh_Jass]

Economics, of course. Ranch dressing has created a totally new food consumption paradigm. Think about how many people who are employed in the manufacture, production, and marketing of ranch dressing. Factory workers, ad executives, restaurant workers, the companies that make those tiny cups to hold the ranch dressing for my wings. Hell, the poultry industry owes ranch dressing big time.

[bouv]

How about the Nobel Prize for Awesomeness?
[sub]what? It’s not a catagory? Well it SHOULD be![/sub]

[cletus]

Bring me my ranch dressing hose. claps twice

[galen]

*Originally posted by Isabelle *
**

the internet (perhaps Gore should get the nobel prize for developing it)

**

FOR THE 50 BILLIONTH TIME!!

Gore never said that he invented the internet!!

[h.sapiens]

I’m not so crazy about Ranch Dressing.

However, the guy who first baked a brownie should get some kind of award.

[mhendo]

*Originally posted by galen *
**FOR THE 50 BILLIONTH TIME!!

Gore never said that he invented the internet!! **

Exactly. The persistence of this shibboleth shows the extent to which people will credit any crap thrown at them by self-serving reporters and politicians, who were just looking for anything to use to discredit Gore in the run-up to the 2000 election.

I’m no huge fan of Gore, and his statement regarding his involvement with the internet was, as Snopes says, “clumsy (and self-serving).” However, anyone who reads what Gore says, and takes it in the context of the question that he was asked, will realise, as Snopes also says, that

he was not claiming that he “invented” the Internet (in the sense of having designed or implemented it), but that he was responsible for helping to create the environment (in an economic and legislative sense) that fostered the development of the Internet.

Snopes does note, however, that even finding evidence of Gore’s legislative action on behalf of the Internet is difficult. To me, this whole thing is little more than typical self-serving political rhetoric on Gore’s part, of the type that is so common among those on all sides of politics.

Salon also has a piece on the subject, which says, in part:

But things that “everybody knows” are always worth examining for defects. And the “Gore claims he invented the Net” trope is so full of holes that it makes you wish there were product recalls for bad information.

Gore never claimed to have “invented” the Internet. What he said was: During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet.

As my colleague Jake Tapper carefully reported here last year, at worst that statement is a minor exaggeration of Gore’s legislative record – and miles away from the “I built it from scratch!” lie into which it has been twisted.

[Liberal]

I don’t really like ranch dressing. I like the sweet dressings, like French, 1000, or Catalina. But I do think that whoever invented the flush toilet deserves a Nobel prize.

[ready29003]

Please don’t let my ranch dressing debate deteriorate into a trivial discussion of politics.

[Nars_Glinley]

The obvious answer is Medicine. Ranch dressing can cure whatever ails you.

Our local hamburger joint serves it with fried okra. You don’t even have to ask for it. mmmmmmm