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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsHow Millennials Killed Mayonnaise
The inexorable rise of identity condiments has led to hard times for the most American of foodstuffs. And thats a shame.
by SANDY HINGSTON· 8/11/2018, 8:59 p.m.
I write this in the dead of summer, always a bittersweet season why is it we got summers off from school for all those years but dont get summers off from work? but doubly depressing these days, when I find myself suffering from picnic panic. The hot, languid weather brings with it a series of outdoor family events for which, as a tribal elder, Im charged with providing provisions. Lately, though, Ive had my feet cut out from under me. For years nay, decades my contributions to the Hingston clans Memorial Day and Fourth of July and Labor Day gatherings were no-brainers: I made what my mother once made. She was such a good cook that when she died prematurely, my husband and I typed up and photocopied (quaint, I know) a booklet of her recipes, tried-and-true favorites on which she built her formidable culinary reputation. When the holidays rolled around, I simply re-created one of her delicious dishes and toted it along.
Along about a decade ago, though, I began to notice I was toting home as much of my offerings as Id concocted. My contributions were being overlooked or shunned. Why should this be? Moms extraordinary potato salad fragrant with dill, spiced by celery seed went untouched on the picnic table. So did her macaroni salad, and her chicken salad, and her deviled eggs. When I carted home a good three pounds of painstakingly prepared Waldorf salad all that peeling and coring and slicing! I was forced to face facts: The familys tastes had changed. Or, rather, our family had changed. Oldsters were dying off, and the young uns taking our places in the paper-plate line were different somehow.
I racked my brain for the source of this generational disconnect. And then, one holiday weekend, while surveying the condiments set out at a family burger bash, I found it. On offer were four different kinds of mustard, three ketchups (one made from, I kid you not, bananas), seven sorts of salsa, kimchi, wasabi, relishes of every ilk and hue
What was missing, though, was the common foundation of all Moms picnic foods: mayonnaise. While I wasnt watching, mayos day had come and gone. Its too basic for contemporary tastes pale and insipid and not nearly exotic enough for our era of globalization. Good ol mayo has become the Taylor Swift of condiments.
....
procon
(15,805 posts)Easy to make a small amount, and delicious for salads, dips and sandwiches, and you can't make an decent aioli sauce without mayo.
I'm not too keen on ketchup, but I like all kinds of mustards, and nothing beats fresh, homemade pico de gallo salsa, but they are no substitute for mayo.
Phoenix61
(17,015 posts)it's hard to beat Dukes.
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,586 posts)There was a thread about mayonnaise here last month. I had to pick up a 32-ounce jar of Duke's a couple of weeks back to make potato salad. My mom would go though Hellman's mayo like nothing you've ever seen, but that jar of Duke's will last me a long time.
procon
(15,805 posts)Hellmann's is my current all purpose favorite. I have a new Mexican mayo that comes flavored with lime which is great for tuna sammiches, and tartar sauce.
becca da bakkah
(426 posts)GeorgeGist
(25,322 posts)and they'll lap it up.
Grasswire2
(13,571 posts)Brother Buzz
(36,458 posts)mahatmakanejeeves
(57,586 posts)By Becky Krystal
August 22 at 10:00 AM
The Polack MSgt
(13,191 posts)But this is unacceptable:
"You dont need a single drop of mayo to make your best potato salad"
LIES!
LIES AND PROPAGANDA!
I've already been eating the best potato salad for decades and the Post can kiss my fat ass
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,586 posts)I watched (and helped, in the sense that I peeled potatoes) my mom make it for years, but on my own I haven't been able to make anything I'd want to polish off in one sitting.
Please don't tell anyone I said this, but store-bought is better than my own.
I'm so ashamed.
The Polack MSgt
(13,191 posts)Of my Mom's recipe.
My Mom taught my Wife her potato and macaroni salad before she passed.
Mrs. Polack never got he macaroni salad right and it is sadly fallen to the wayside - but she miraculously improved the potato salad.
AND NO IT DOESN"T HAVE ALMONDS OR RAISINS IN IT
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,586 posts)dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)A good potato salad tastes better on day 2, after all the flavors have "found themselves" ...love that phrase.
Mr. Dixie loves Hellman's mayonnaise, I don't. He said for many years that he does not like Miracle Whip.
He also loves my potato salads. I use Miracle Whip. and a table spoon of dill pickle juice, along with the pickles and onions, and
a good pinch of dry mustard powder. My Mom's recipe.
She was a horrible and disinterested cook, but occasionally pulled off a few good dishes. Very puzzling.
exboyfil
(17,865 posts)I will on occasion get a small jar to slather up some bologna (another item not usually in our house) or to make up some tuna salad.
Still I prefer mustard so it is all good in our house (they are not allergic to it but do not eat it either). They eat plain chicken sandwiches and lunch meat sandwiches, and only ketchup on burgers.
Floyd R. Turbo
(26,570 posts)stopbush
(24,396 posts)People with high blood pressure are regularly advised to avoid it.
PennyK
(2,302 posts)But as a low-carber, I can't get through a day without it!
KT2000
(20,586 posts)it goes with everything - tomato sandwiches, onion sandwiches, mix it with mustard for chicken, beef, salami sandwiches.
My friend says she doesn't like mayo and refuses to buy it. Funny thing is - when I fix sandwiches for her, she doubles up on the mayo!
kysrsoze
(6,022 posts)Those dishes are for people who have given up on taste and creativity.
This article is pretty stupid. I think everyone's taste has evolved. Mustardy potato salad and vinegar based slaws are so much more tasty. But on a sandwich, mayo can be pretty awesome. And now there are all kinds of aioli, chipotle mayo, spicy mayo, etc. It's now not the #1 condiment, but it has its place and we're all healthier for it.
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,586 posts)LeftInTX
(25,515 posts)Mayonnaise will no longer be dead
Little Star
(17,055 posts)KayF
(1,345 posts)https://www.buzzfeed.com/michelleregna/things-millennials-killed-in-2017?utm_term=.lg71VemvN#.grNxlPGgm
SnobTober
(1 post)Taylor Swift, is a damn Icon you crazy old bat! If she is anything in the condiment world she is the divine ranch dressing. Everybody loves ranch. Get your facts straight.
The Polack MSgt
(13,191 posts)BTW Ranch is "Satan's Secret Sauce" and nobody deserves to have to taste that
Docreed2003
(16,869 posts)I love me some ranch....shit, that just proves that officers can't be trusted... . Whoops
The Polack MSgt
(13,191 posts)As long as we have the bullet bottles of Tabasco - all is well
Well, except that I had to remind my youngsters that they should eat one peanut butter and vegetable cracker snack every other day.
Just to keep the line in motion...
Your a Doc - So you know why
Aristus
(66,444 posts)has a wonderfully pleasant tang to it.
Sheesh! Something else people have chosen to blame millenials for...
Floyd R. Turbo
(26,570 posts)Beakybird
(3,333 posts)But it costs $20 a packet.
LeftInTX
(25,515 posts)Watching their documentary on PBS
rustysgurl
(1,040 posts).. would adulterate the contributions of mayonnaise with a Taylor Swift connection. It deserves better than that IMHO.
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,482 posts)...(and anything else that might somehow derive from putinland) there's...
Mayochup
tazkcmo
(7,300 posts)They need it to make aoli.
Orangepeel
(13,933 posts)The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,829 posts)I put mayonnaise on damn near everything, especially things that normal people put ketchup on. But then I'm old and have been eating mayonnaise-based food all my life.
LeftInTX
(25,515 posts)Nothing like biting into a chicken salad sandwich or any sandwich that is been slabbed with Miracle Whip. Nasty and awful
My mom switched from mayo to Miracle Whip sometime in the 90s. Eventually we just brought our own mayonnaise when we visited.
jmowreader
(50,562 posts)Snellius
(6,881 posts)Still hear that all the time.
RobinA
(9,894 posts)mayonnaise still exists, but I hafta say, we Boomers killed off mince pie. Beat it to a slimy black pulp and it now will not appear on the property. So I guess each generation has to fight to support its food but once the fighters are gone...
Mr.Bill
(24,317 posts)uses no mayonnaise. It uses bacon grease, though, with bits of bacon.