Food For Thought: The Mayo Clinic

Travel Perils And Rewards

My mother was a fervent believer in the inevitability of airplane crashes — to such a degree that when my parents went on vacations to Europe, my father took a plane and my mother reserved a very nice stateroom on a ship. Her belief prevailed when I went to study German in a Goethe Institut program.  I was deposited in a windowless cabin (some might have called it steerage) which slept just four people on a Holland America Line passenger ship, the S.S. Rotterdam. One of the few pleasures I remember was the food served in a crowded but formal dining room. One evening the waiter served our first course which was a salad of hard boiled eggs garnished with a white sauce. I pushed it around my plate and then tasted it. It was delicious. I asked the waiter, who was trained not to appear too friendly to passengers, what it was. “That, Modom, is mayonnaise,” was his response. There were some notable outcomes to that period. I surprisingly aced the final oral and written exams in German, my mother finally joined my father on transcontinental flights after her ship had a terrible accident in the Bremerhaven harbor and I learned how to make mayonnaise after researching several mayo recipes.

North And South

I occasionally read in social and traditional media about the competition between Hellmann’s and Duke’s. Since I am not a fan of either, I was curious about the perceived differences.  To start with, one is from the North and the other from the South. One is the brainchild of a man and the other, of a woman. Actually, their histories and the ongoing rivalry between their respective fans are rather sweet. 

Richard Hellmann, a Prussian immigrant, landed in New York city at the beginning of the 20th century and married into a delicatessen-owning family. He soon opened his own on Columbus Avenue, where he developed his mayonnaise to be given out to clients. It became so popular that he tinkered with the recipe so that it would be less perishable. And then he sold it in bulk to other stores.  The bulk sales were so profitable that with the sale of his delicatessen,  he could afford to build a small factory, and the consumer-size bottle of Richard Hellmann’s Blue Ribbon (his marketing design) Mayonnaise was born. The bottles were reusable, and a purchaser could get an additional gasket for a penny. Hellmann tried to market other products, but nothing had the staying power of his mayonnaise. He dropped all other products and focused on expanding its sales. In the ensuing years, a California brand of  mayonnaise, Best Foods, become a competitor. Its parent company, Postum Foods,  bought Richard Hellmann’s company, when he wanted to retire.  Today, the same mayonnaise is marketed under the Best Foods Brand west of the Rocky Mountains, and virtually the same recipe is marketed under the Hellmann’s name east of the Rockies. Today, after being part of several acquisitions, the two brands are owned by Unilever. When tasters quibble over the differences between the two, there is supposedly a bit more vinegar in the Best Foods version. Both labels list a combination of primarily soybean oil, water, whole eggs, vinegar, salt, sugar, lemon juice, with scorbic acid,  and assorted “natural flavors”. 

Duke’s Mayonnaise was born in Greenville, South Carolina over a century ago. Its success is even more remarkable in that it was driven by a woman at a time and place where a female run enterprise was almost unheard of. Eugenia Duke started by selling sandwiches to soldiers stationed nearby. She distributed her sandwiches (pimento cheese, chicken or egg salad) which were spread with lots of her homemade mayonnaise, near a military camp. The soldiers bought thousands of them. After the  end of WWI, she began distributing sandwiches through drugstores, and she even maintained a tea room in a prominent Greenville hotel. Assessing the ever-growing  number of queries about the spread that made her sandwiches such a financial success, Eugenia’s top salesman encouraged her to focus on the spread instead of the sandwiches. She did and sold her sandwich business, which still operates in Greenville today. Duke’s homegrown mayonnaise continued to amass huge sales, and Eugenia was advised by the same salesman to sell her mayonnaise enterprise to C. F. Sauer, a larger corporation that produced spices. Eugenia became the spokeswoman for the mayonnaise and C.F. Sauer promoted it successfully in grocery stores throughout the US, but primarily in the South.  Even when she “retired” to California to be with her daughter, the ever resourceful  Eugenia Duke opened a new sandwich business  called the Duchess Sandwich Company, successfully selling sandwiches to drugstores and cafes. Duke’s mayonnaise has additional egg yolks in its whole-egg formula, and no sugar (actually a necessity when it was made on a larger scale amid sugar rationing) and a bit of paprika with the vinegar base. One of the classic mayo recipes.

A Family Feud

I think my older daughter, who went to school briefly in North Carolina, like her father, preferred Duke’s, but as Hellmann’s was the favorite of both her grandmothers, we had both jars in the house. Daughter and dad even had taste tests (if one could call it that) involving peanut butter, mayonnaise and banana sandwiches. I had to leave the room when this bit of family bonding took place. (It should be noted that geography is not destiny. The father has grown to prefer Hellman’s on his world-famous BLTs.) Me, if I want mayonnaise, I make my own, and take solace that there exists a society for the  preservation of Oeufs Mayonnaise in France – L’Association Pour La Sauvegarde De L’Oeuf Mayonnaise or L’ASOM. If you have an annual competition for the best Oeufs Mayonnaise, there has to be some hope for the world.  The winner in 2019was  Bouillon Pigalle, and and they only charge 2.40 euros for it. 

I think David Tanis says it best in his book Market Cooking. “Why would you not make your own mayonnaise? It’s completely baffling to me since it is so easy to make and so divine.” I basically use the procedure he outlines.  I use grapeseed oil or sunflower seed oil and will add some olive oil or nut oil, depending on what it is being served with.  I do it by hand in a bowl with a whisk, or sometimes in a mortar and pestle, particularly if it has some added tuna or roasted peppers. Doing it in a blender or food processor actually took more time, if you consider the setup and clean-up afterwards. This is truly one of the best mayo recipes to try.

As a final note, I feel I would be remiss if I did not share with you a mayonnaise I made from Jennifer McLagen’ s dear-to-my heart cookbook Fat. Of all mayo recipes, this mayo version is the soul sister to a BLT as it is made from room temperature bacon grease instead of oil.  This is one case where it is better to create your emulsion in a small blender or food processor (again small container) rather than doing it by hand. You may not use all the liquid bacon grease, depending on the size of the yolk. When the emulsion gets to the spreadable consistency and flavor you like, don’t add more.  It congeals in the refrigerator, so you have to bring it back to room temperature and remix a bit. Just have your  sandwich fixin’s ready. She suggests that it is good on any egg sandwich, grilled vegetables, cooked shrimp or lobster as well as potato salad.  I have made it a few times, not just for BLTs but also for a very different Oeufs Mayonnaise. Maybe even prize-winning Oeufs!