The Surprisingly Messy History of Mayonnaise

Fishwives of Paris

The episode explores the disputed and often messy history of mayonnaise, debating whether its origins lie in a Spanish military victory or F

Key takeaways

• The legend of the Duke of Richelieu claims he invented the sauce in 1756 after substituting olive oil for butter during the capture of Port Mahon.
• Antonin Carême played a pivotal role in attempting to codify the spelling and origin of mayonnaise, clashing with other etymological theories.

Main topics

• Mayonnaise origin myths
• Culinary history of France

Notable quotes

He's a military man with a back pocket full of culinary tricks.

Conclusion

A delightful deep dive into how much of our culinary 'truth' is actual

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Bonjour, Emily. Bonjour, Caroline. We are the Fishwives of Paris, the podcast that exposes the myths holding together French identity. Oh, Speaker 2 (0:09) it's a big job, but somebody's going to do it. Today, Speaker 1 (0:12) we're going to tackle France's favorite sauce and arguably the most popular sauce in the world, la mayonnaise mayo. And doing that, of course, will require rigorous research presented by you, Emily Monaco, journalist extraordinaire, Gemini, Scorpio rising, and Libra moon. Is that right? That is correct. And what that means is that you're a bitch. Most of the time. Excellent. And Speaker 2 (0:43) you, of course, are Caroline Fazzelli, a wine school dropout. Master of wine dropout. Master of wine. I did Speaker 1 (0:50) go to other wine school, which I achieved. Master Speaker 2 (0:53) of wine dropout. Master of wine. Please, my apologies, because you're also a blind taste testing champion. 20 Speaker 1 (1:01) years ago. 20 Speaker 2 (1:01) years ago at Oxford. the owner of a wine tasting company, Leon Wine Tastings, that allows visitors to Leon to explore the wide and wonderful world of French wine. And a just general badass, really. Yeah. So Speaker 1 (1:18) we're going to talk about mayo today, which, you know, as I said, is extraordinarily popular, but also has haters. I would like to have a trigger warning now for the mayo haters. I hate you. I'm just kidding. I don't. But you're wrong. Speaker 2 (1:31) I would agree. I think mayo haters are wrong, but I also think that mayo is a question of quantity often. Speaker 1 (1:40) We are going to discuss the argument from mayo haters. I have interviewed some mayo haters to get the down low. So we're going to get to that later. And so your Speaker 2 (1:50) case will be made, haters. It will be made. Oh, I am enticed and excited by that. It's going to be great. Amazing. Yeah. So mayo, very divisive in terms of whether people like it or hate it. And also very divisive in terms of who the heck invented it. So some people say the French. Some people say the Spanish. In France, of course, we have a big lofty myth surrounding how mayonnaise was invented. Would you like to hear it? I Speaker 1 (2:16) would like to hear it because I feel like it's a French word, la mayonnaise. And I do think that French people would assume it was French. But I do think, yeah, I want to hear this myth because it's not French, is it? Speaker 2 (2:28) Well. We'll see. Okay. So the legend says that it is 1756. The Duke of Richelieu is leading a French armada, arrives in the port of Mahon on the island of Menorca, which is near Mallorca in the Mediterranean. Yes. And manages to take the port. Huzzah! And so in celebration, obviously he's French. He needs to have a feast. And so he wants something rich and luxurious. And typically in French cooking, when we have a sauce that is rich and luxurious, it is made rich and luxurious through the addition of butter, butter, cream, some kind of dairy product. Indeed. Which he finds a severe Speaker 1 (3:10) dearth of. On a Spanish island in the Mediterranean? What? Speaker 2 (3:15) And so he's like, oh, God, what are we going to do? Oh, I know what's a good stand in for butter. Olive oil. Speaker 1 (3:22) And he is a culinary expert, this guy. Right. Speaker 2 (3:25) He's Speaker 1 (3:25) a Speaker 2 (3:25) he's a he's a he's a military man with a back pocket full of culinary tricks. Just Speaker 1 (3:33) got a whisk in his butt. Right. Speaker 2 (3:35) Pull that out here. And I'm going to make myself this lovely creamy sauce and I'm going to name it. after this port. So like you said, mayonnaise is a French word, this A-I-S-E suffix, you know, Lyonnaise, something from Lyon. So Mahonnaise with an H, not a Y, would be the original name of this sauce invented by the Duke of Richelieu. Speaker 1 (4:01) That makes a lot more sense than him finding it in a Menorcan taverna. That he made it himself with the whisk in his butt. Right. Yeah. Speaker 2 (4:11) Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1 (4:12) That Speaker 2 (4:12) makes sense. Yeah. Speaker 1 (4:13) So it didn't, they just weren't, they weren't already making it and serving it. No, he's just a genius. Okay. Yeah. Speaker 2 (4:18) Yeah. Speaker 1 (4:19) He's just inventing dishes after his. Port takeover. Okay, so cool. I buy that not at all, obviously. But I do see, is it possible that is the origin? I mean, that it was discovered by the French in this moment, do we think? So maybe. Speaker 2 (4:37) I think this is the thing. He maybe discovers it. He probably brings it back to the French court. The problem is that we actually see multiple different spellings of this sauce. In the 18th and 19th century, depending on who is writing the cookbook. So we see things like sauce bayonnaise with a Y, but a B at the beginning. Speaker 1 (4:59) Which is still. Spain. Well, Basque. Basque. Yeah. Speaker 2 (5:05) Franco Basque. Yeah. But from Bayonne. So that's one possibility. Speaker 1 (5:12) Can we just put it out there that this is a Spanish sauce? Can we just give it credit? No. I mean, like they figured it out first. Speaker 2 (5:20) We'll see. Speaker 1 (5:20) Okay. Okay. Okay. Speaker 2 (5:22) Keep going. Maybe. Yeah. The least likely, which therefore makes it my favorite, is Sos... Mayonnaise with a Y and an E. Okay. Speaker 1 (5:34) Mayenne. Speaker 2 (5:36) Which would be a reference to the Duke of Mayenne. Speaker 1 (5:38) Another Duke with a whisk in his butt. Speaker 2 (5:40) Yes. And he's, so this is Charles of Lorraine and this is the, the story that dates the invention of mayonnaise to the furthest back in time. Okay. To the 16th century, the 1500s. So he ostensibly would have invented this sauce again after another victorious battle, but this time in Normandy. Speaker 2 (6:01) Why is that problematic? Speaker 1 (6:02) Well, that is butter territory. Cream territory would make no sense. Like what oil are they using in Normandy? I mean, I guess this goes back. If you don't know that mayonnaise is made with oil and eggs, I don't know where you've been, but that is what it's made from. So that just doesn't make any sense at all. Speaker 2 (6:18) The only reason I've even opted to mention this story on the podcast is because what happens afterwards just made me laugh, which is that the Duke loved the sauce so much that he ate. So much of it Speaker 1 (6:30) that Speaker 2 (6:31) then he was violently ill. Okay. And so maybe that's why people get the ick when they eat mayonnaise is because they're eating too much of it. Speaker 1 (6:39) That is possible. So I personally tend to trust Speaker 2 (6:42) the assertions of Pierre Leclerc, who is a culinary historian based in Liège. And he attributes the invention or the perfection, the refining of mayonnaise to Paris. Speaker 1 (6:55) Okay. Okay. So then. It is French. Speaker 2 (7:00) So he says that in the 19th century, kind of at the point where a lot of French food was being refined, we see the development and the categorization of the mother sauces, which is something that we've spoken about before on the podcast. We'll talk about it again. This is something that you noticed when we were talking about caram is that the original categorization of the mother sauces is quite different from the categorization that we saw with Escoffier. Most of caram sauces start with a roux base. Yes. And so when we come into something that's more based in emulsification, like mayonnaise, that feels quite modern. So that's a little bit later? Yeah. Was Carême working Speaker 1 (7:35) with sauces like this? Speaker 2 (7:37) Well, interesting question. We start to see people kind of moving towards this emulsification at the beginning of the 19th century, specifically with André Viard, who publishes a cookbook at the beginning of the 19th century, which contains the very first recipe that even looks like something we might... considered to be similar to mayonnaise. What Speaker 1 (7:58) was that recipe? Speaker 2 (7:59) So it was a vinaigrette that was thickened. And typically when we would be thickening things, we'd be thickening them with things like a velouté, which is a Speaker 1 (8:06) slow cooked sauce that has a lot of collagen Speaker 2 (8:09) in Speaker 1 (8:10) it. And Speaker 2 (8:10) he's going to be the first one to Speaker 1 (8:12) thicken something with egg. Speaker 2 (8:13) So he invents this sauce, which he actually calls a remoulade. Remoulade? Yes, I know. But it's not remoulade as we think of it today. So it's a sauce that's thickened with egg yolk and mustard. Okay. And in his cookbook, he also has another sauce called mayonnaise. Okay. Which is thickened with veal brains. Whoa. So the reason I'm telling you this story is because when we see the word mayonnaise appearing in different references through time, it doesn't mean that we're referring to what we think of as mayonnaise today, which is a cold emulsified sauce. made with egg yolk and oil and mustard. Because Speaker 1 (8:54) I think an origin of a cold oil-based thick sauce being Spanish,