MAYONNAISE RECIPE

There is so much ignorance and confusion about the recipe for mayonnaise, a thing so simple from a traditional perspective, that I thought a few words on this foundational sauce is in order, to dispel some longstanding, and seemingly eternal, confusions, and to use it as an example to refer to other things I want to hint at, in passing.

Many recipes, by cooks or food 'writers', contain a lot of nonsense about the need to use a whole egg, and then go drop by drop by drop by drop by drop by drop, with the oil, even requiring a blender or mixer to get the necessary speed, much like Chinese water torture but with a motor, in the vain uncertain hope that, at some undetermined point, ala the race between 'the tortoise and Achilles', the mixture will somehow miraculously, like "Witchcraft Among The Azande", (see Fraser, Winch), transform into the wonderful yellow (metal) mayonnaise, by a sort of medieval alchemy, and its maker be held a veritable alchemist witch doctor of arcane art of mayonnaise.

Many of these recipes, over many decades, have copied eachother, blindly.

No experimentation; no trial and error; no inquiry re veracity; often, nothing, just rote repetition of a bad paradigm.

Perhaps the mayonnaise manufacturers had some hand in this level of general ignorance, as if a method for making mayonnaise were some trade secret which it were better to obfuscate than disclose.

Many stranger things have happened, across the 20th Century, in food lore.

All of this is ridiculous obfuscation.

These are the reasons why:

Mayonnaise is relatively simple to make, not difficult. Not doubtful.

It is made by first making an 'emulsifier' for the oil. Whole eggs do not work so well. That is one of the tricks which may have been foisted on the cookery public early on. If you start out with a whole egg, you may have a problem.

You make an emulsifier by mixing a heaping teaspoon of mustard with an egg yolk. This makes a very effective emulsifier. There are other formulas, eg vinegar, or lemon or lime juice. They all work, depending on proportions.

Once this is mixed up well with a hand whisk, you can then, unceremoniously, even blithely, dump large pourings of oil, and whisk it, slowly, leisurely, even awkwardly, into the emulsifier, knowing, with the assurance of a Newton, that it will coalesce, almost immediately, into mayonnaise, adding oil until 8 ounces of oil (preferably olive oil) have been so absorbed.

Flavorings can be added near the end, eg garlic, capers, onion, etc.

This should take no longer than four minutes by hand whisk, or you are overdoing it.

Chill, and keep for as short a time as possible.

Raw eggs can contain salmonella, so all makers of raw mayonnaise must beware.