Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Mayonnaise

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy podcasters/writers David Christopher Bell and Tom Reimann (Gamefully Unemployed) for a look at why mayonnaise is secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

mayonnaise known for being a condiment famous for being white and eggy nobody thinks much about it so let's have some fun let's find out why mayonnaise is secretly incredibly fascinating Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. A wonderful pair of guests returns today for a second helping of sauce. If you've heard the ketchup episode of this podcast, then you know about David Christopher Bell and Tom Ryman. I insisted they return for mayonnaise. That was the only way this show was happening. Dave and Tom run an amazing podcast network and streaming channel called Gamefully Unemployed.

Also, Tom is an associate editor at Collider.com. Dave is a script writer for the Some More News YouTube channel with other friends of ours. These guys are multi-talented and busy, and I'm so glad they made time for returning for mayonnaise. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Catawba, Eno, and Shikori peoples. Acknowledge Dave and Tom each recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Ortongva and Keech and Chumash peoples. And acknowledge that in all of our locations, Native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode.

And today's episode is about mayonnaise. And the main thing to say about the content of this episode is that whether you love mayonnaise or hate mayonnaise, this show is for you. We celebrate both viewpoints and sort of explore some science with that as well. It's a good time. So let's get on with that. Please sit back or stand over a bowl, stirring together a secret sauce that is just mayo and ketchup. That's most secret sauces. Come on.

And anyway, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with David Christopher Bell and Tom Ryman. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. And then, and this will come out December 21st. So, references wise, you know that. It's kind of the Christmas episode, yeah. Oh, cool. But not really in any

specific ways. We gotta learn something about the spirit of Christmas or something. The spirit of mayonnaise. The spirit of mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is white like snow. Yeah, elves make it. Yeah, elves do make it.

At the top of this, I just want to say I love that we get, like, Da Vinci code, like, clues in the email. Yeah. Where you're like, here's a meme. Here's a picture of mayonnaise. Here's a person about to eat a bunch of. Where it's just like these five pictures will tell you what you're doing. Yeah.

And nothing more. Well, this will go in the show. Because, yeah, maybe I haven't totally clearly told listeners that, yeah, I just tell guests what the topic is and tell them to be ready to talk about their opinion of it. And then send a few visual aids if necessary. Yeah, a few clues. A set of mayonnaise visual aids. A few tasty hints. late yeah a few a few tasty hints what if what if i mailed you actual mayonnaise and then you guys were like we know what that is

you didn't need to do that so here's what mayonnaise is yeah you have to eat it on mic yeah i want to see you eat it this is a good time to also say this episode will cater to people who do not like mayonnaise in addition to people who do not like mayonnaise, in addition to those who do. But I always start by asking us, as you know, their relationship to the topic or opinion of it. I think on the ketchup episode, we established that we all at least like mayonnaise a medium amount. But how do you guys feel about mayonnaise? How do you feel about it?

I'm pro-mayonnaise. I'm going to throw that gauntlet down on the table right now. I'm going to throw that gauntlet down on the table right now. I think of mayonnaise the way I think of like oil, where it's like, I wouldn't chug it, but it's a necessary lubricant in the eating process. In the food world, yeah. It's necessary to moisten your sandwiches. Yeah.

I don't want to get too close to it. No, I grew up in Germany, so I eat French fries with mayonnaise. Oh, yeah. As the Europeans do. And wisely, I think. It's a good move. It's not a bad combo. It's a strong move, yeah.

It's a real flex. Real mayonnaise flex. I will say, if I have mayonnaise next to ketchup, I'm going for that ketchup, probably. You mean in a fry context? In a fry. Yeah, in a fry.

Yeah, yeah. Because I think the mayonnaise, it's not flavorful enough for fries. Well, see, that's where you're dead wrong, Dave. You're dead wrong. Well, again, I'm not hating it. I'm not hating it. Mayonnaise bursts with flavor. Yeah.

That's fair i feel like mayonnaise is divisive right on the internet and everything so i'm glad we've we're finding division points already in a positive way it's one of those things that if someone's like i hate mayonnaise i'm like i understand like i like mayonnaise but i understand how it could be hated because it's like you said, it's divisive. Like it's a it's just a very strong condiment. So I get that it could upset people. I assume it's also an age thing. Like when you're a kid, you want like mustard or ketchup. Oh, yeah.

But like, I don't know, as I got older, a nice layer of mayonnaise on my veggie burger is delightful. I also use it as a uh i make an egg and cheese sandwich in the morning sometimes and like you need a little bit of a lubricant you don't want too much on there but like you want a little lube on there and mayonnaise is a good lube for that yeah yeah because mayonnaise is eggs so you're lubricating the egg with egg with more egg yeah with its pulverized relatives. Yeah. Dave, I like that you described it as oil earlier because it is literally mostly oil.

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. Well, yeah, you can use it instead of butter in some cases. There are recipes where you'll put mayonnaise on, like there's, I think there, all right, I'm pretty sure there's a grilled cheese recipe where you can put mayonnaise on the bread. I've been on the internet. Yeah, the internet, as we, I think, discussed with ketchup as well,

I'm sure the internet's a bottomless well of mayonnaise things. Yeah. Not all of them pleasant. Yeah. My mom made like a baked macaroni one time using a recipe that used mayonnaise and it was horrible yeah that doesn't sound good

the only time uh ever growing up or as an adult that both my brother and i were like what is this this tastes horrible because you know every other time you get something you don't like it's like you recognize that oh this is a taste thing like this is just i i don't like this yeah i recognize that it's fine i'm gonna eat it's like no no this macaroni was bad we're like no you're like we can't do this we just can't do this i have just can't do this. I have a question, Alex, because you've probably done a lot of research. I just Googled mayonnaise and Google has it classified as a dressing. Oh, you know what? This is a great time to get into the first segment of the show then.

Because on every episode, as you know, our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of numbers and statistics. And that is in a segment called Oh, Darling, Darling Stats by me. Keep going. Keep going. Oh, I don't have it in me. But that was submitted by Alex Coulombe, friend of the show Alex Coulombe. And we're going to have a new name for this segment every week. Make them as silly and wacky and bad as possible. Submit to at SIFpod on Twitter or to SIFpod at gmail.com. Because the first number is 65%. And 65% is the minimum oil by weight for mayonnaise

to be labeled as mayonnaise in the United States, according to the FDA and federal rules. It has to be 65%. And that also means that Miracle Whip, famously, but also some other mayo-type things, too. Miracle Whip is technically salad dressing, because it is too low in oil content to be called mayonnaise. There is a discernible difference between Miracle Whip and mayonnaise. I got that years ago thinking they were the same thing and you try Miracle Whip and you're like,

this is not mayonnaise. I'm going to go ahead and say Miracle Whip is trash. Miracle Whip is pretty gross, yeah. Yeah, there's a weird off flavor to it. It tastes like mayonnaise that someone peed in. It tastes like slightly

weird mayonnaise. It's like mayonnaise that like like someone peed in like it tastes like slightly slightly weird mayonnaise it's like it's like mayonnaise that tried to hold back man yeah well it's mayonnaise that tried to be marshmallows yeah and that's not a good combination you don't you don't put mayonnaise on marshmallows why would would you do that? Alex, why would you do that? I am okay. Because it's all I have of the worst pantry. It's the horrible pantry. I also prefer regular mayonnaise to Miracle Whip.

So we are united there. Sorry, listeners. But the FDA says that for something to be labeled with the word mayonnaise it has to contain at least 65 oil by weight also has to contain egg and contain vinegar so in the u.s you have to have those in the jar for it to say mayonnaise on the jar okay you know what's funny is this is the first time i even wondered what mayonnaise is made out of and that makes sense that makes a lot of sense i i knew those i knew those three ingredients i knew that it was i knew that it was egg and

oil and vinegar i was kind of in the realm of like i don't want to know uh you know i just want to live my life uh enjoying mayonnaise now that you tell me the base ingredients i'm like oh that's not as bad as i thought so you know it's one of those where you're like they have you know in order for it to be mayonnaise it has to contain like this much egg and this much squid and i've been like damn all right it has to be 28 this whole time 28 cricket legs by volume yeah and i want more legs i'm so upset that's it the legs give it its tang the next number here is another percentage it is more than 80 80 and that is the combined u.s market share of just two companies in the mayonnaise industry one of them is craft hines because they make miracle whip that's sold

in the u.s canada and i think elsewhere The other one is Unilever, because they are one of the world's biggest food companies, and they own the Hellman's slash Best Foods brand of mayonnaise. Are you guys aware of the name split there? It's a weird thing. I am not. I know that when I moved to the West Coast, Hellman's became Best Foods. Exactly. Yeah, it's like one of those Hardee's, Carl's Jr. things. If people know that American reference where Hellman's is the name of the mayonnaise in the eastern US, Canada, Europe, and then Best Foods is the brand name in the western US and New Zealand. And then also the internet tells me you can get both names in Australia. And I don't know why. But apparently

you can do that. And it's chaos chaos but they started as separate companies on separate coasts and then uh merged together in 1927 and they're still called separate things okay yeah you can't ditch that brand recognition even after a hundred years pretty bold to call your brand best foods uh because like man what a flex is that right it's solid they're just like what what will really grab them i don't know what if our foods is the best food it's it's like really in the supermarket and you're like well that's the best one apparently that's real that's that's real depression era thinking yeah yeah you're right uh by the way i I just want to know, I am on the Reddit, the subreddit for mayonnaise right now. And it is weird.

What are you learning? I don't know if you guys want to know. I don't. Let's move on. This is real weird stuff. Dave, close that incognito window so we can continue the podcast. And so, yeah, so there's the one mayonnaise giant and the one Miracle Whip giant. That's most sales of it.

Unilever is so big that our next number here is 350 million. And 350 million is the number of eggs that Unilever purchases annually to make their mayonnaise. That's a lot of eggs, like a third of a billion. That's too many eggs's a lot of eggs, like a third of a billion. That's too many eggs. A lot of eggs. A lot of chickens that will never be born. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, handling eggs just sucks.

And imagine having to handle eggs on that scale. It's just a whole thing that I don't care to think about. I don't know. I can't handle when I get eggs, it's a crisis. In your mind, is it one person cracking all 350 million eggs? No, no, no. Just like delivering them. Just like holding them.

Be like, oh, don't drop it, don't drop it, don't drop it. No, I'm just saying, like, mass egg delivery. I don't know. That just seems like a shitty thing to be involved in. So, Dave, you mean they just have to be that careful all the time that's the problem right like is it a whole industry of people who are like we can't break these goddamn eggs when i get eggs delivered because i because it's a pandemic so i get them delivered getting them from like my door to my fridge is a crisis for me um is this just me am i just clumsy where do you dick van dyke like

what you can't carry a car i have never broken an egg in my life i get very nervous about eggs and i've had eggs show up broken you calamitous that's a concern you know yeah that's their whole deal they're eggs they're eggs they break yeah if you're a yeah that's their whole deal their eggs their eggs they break yeah if you're a clown that's why they're in the cartons it's hard tom are you riding a unicycle to your from your door to the kitchen i don't know sometimes just to spice things up what are you doing i'm just saying that's a lot of eggs to have to get around. And that just is, I'm concerned about it. I'm very concerned about these eggs.

Listen, man, they've been in the business of mayonnaise making since the 1920s. I think they got it covered. They figured out the eggs? Yeah, they figured it out, man. All right. I'm just, I'm really enjoying imagining the entire global egg industry being people making that little noise you make when you're nervous about carrying something it's like yeah i want i wanted to be like everybody handling eggs hates it it's just like oh these damn eggs

oh my god oh my god oh my god just all the time don't break don't break don't break well uh this uh this next number is a chaos number this number is 1250 gallons and 1250 gallons is the amount of spoiled mayonnaise that students at Michigan State University turned into energy. Huh. Students at Michigan State, they said, we've spoiled 1,250 gallons. What do we do? And they turned it into power. Which is very exciting. It's a good use of food.

What did... Are you just going to leave it at that? I'm going to... I'm going to guess. I'm going to guess. The outro music plays. That was it. That's the show.

That's all you get. So apparently what happened is in December of 2016, and this is coming from Atlas Obscura, there were freezing temperatures to the point that 500 containers of dining hall mayonnaise was compromised, and each container holds two and a half gallons. And then this is also coming from the student newspaper at Michigan State. The university realized there was an issue when, quote,

students in the cafeteria complained, end quote. And then also the local food bank turned it down, which I think is fair. I like that the complained is in quotes. They complained about the spoiled mayonnaise they got stomach boobies they complained about the rotten egg juice yeah concerns were raised as the vomiting and pooping. And so then Michigan State, it's like many big state schools, has a big ag program and a lot of interesting agricultural things. And so their farms on the south side of campus had a large anaerobic digester,

which is where you feed biodegradable waste to microorganisms. And then the microorganisms produce biogas, and that can be heat or electricity. And so a team of 12 volunteers spent a full eight-hour day scooping and pouring mayonnaise into this digester and turned it into power. Just a laborious old mayonnaise day turned into a good thing. It's like the survival video game Ra raft that everybody knows and is very popular uh that i play a lot of you you make biofuel by by sticking garbage and a thing yeah it's it's it's science i'm an expert on this it all checks out i was hoping they like i don't know use the mayonnaise to grease up a bunch of cats to be more aerodynamic and like be on treadmills or

something yeah but i guess yeah but i guess your way makes more sense right so yeah this country so are you saying we can run on mayonnaise like this country uh someday we probably could do a lot more of this anaerobic digester thing yeah i think that would probably be a good idea you know we just throw out so much. Oh, I almost forgot. There's one more like mental picture step to it, which is apparently after they scooped out all the mayonnaise containers,

they then rinsed all of the containers to recycle them. Like that was part of the workday. And the rinsing part was apparently chaos. This quote is somebody who did it from the Michigan State newspaper quote, mayonnaise was getting all all over some carpet was getting smeared and we all had dress clothes on this was not anticipated at all end quote was it not anticipated why did they have your hose yeah why are you wearing dress clothes and you're hosing out giant containers of mayonnaise you guys are in college question come on i hoping it was going to turn into like a party, like a Bud Light commercial where

they're like, yeah, college kids with hoses and mayonnaise. They had a party. It just was wild. But no, they're just like, they're dainty little college kids with their dress clothes. Come on, guys. Get it together. You're wearing a shirt and tie to scoop out spoiled mayonnaise, you doof. That's on you.

Yeah. And in college, I'm pretty sure I didn't iron dress shirts before putting them on. These guys are in formal wear to scoop mayonnaise. Yeah. There's two more numbers here. One of them is the year 2017. And 2017 is the year that astronauts ate mayonnaise in space. Just a really good time. It took that long?

Yeah, was there something preventing mayonnaise from going into space? Does it not do well in zero gravity? Or is NASA just like, it's gross. Mayonnaise is gross. We're not dealing with it. So there's a cool thing where the International Space Station, it turns out it has a vegetable production system where they can grow plants. And NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, an alumna of Iowa Wesleyan University, go Tigers,

she used that system to grow lettuce. And then the crew ate it with a topping of lobster and wasabi mayonnaise, which was brought up from Earth. Wait, they ate it with lobster, did you say? Yeah, I think they just had their space lettuce and then they brought up lobster and then also a wasabi mayonnaise and i like googled when i tried to google around and find other mayonnaise in space and that's the only thing i can find so what's the first time they lobster in space i was about to say i'm more impressed by the lobster imagine living in the imagine living in the bottom of the ocean and getting murdered and brought into space

like that's the last place that lobster thought thought that they were gonna go that is an excellent point i mean in a way it's it's kind of an accomplishment because that lobster got to go to space but you know not under the best conditions right that lobster went further than any other lobster has gone yeah like all right if you guys were like 90 and someone told you you could go to space but you have to be killed and eaten would you do it just to go to space just to be in space yeah would you get murdered and eaten to go to space probably i question yeah yeah the astronauts are cannibals at that point so so I question them.

But Miami's fine. That's okay. It could be aliens. Yeah. It could be aliens eating you with alien mayonnaise, slathering you. For some reason, I'm less down to get harvested by aliens. But if humans do it, it's fine. Maybe it's Earth patriotism.

I don't know. Yeah, it's human pride. You're just like, no. If anybody's going to eat me, it'll be other people. Thank you very much. I'm fine to be killed by my own, but not you, sir. Yeah. I think that's really what I think. I'm learning that now.

Yeah. Well, we've discovered something today. That's good. We're learning. Yeah, yeah. The last number here, and I'll foreground this right away it's the world record for eating mayonnaise so steal yourself if that that is gross to you uh the record is three and a half jars within three minutes so uh that is more than a jar a minute it's a lot of

mayonnaise uh guinness book of world records awarded this to to Michelle Lesko in 2019 and she's a professional speed eater she also has world records for the fastest time to eat a bowl of pasta and the fastest time to eat a hot dog with no hands so she has a few of these that surprises me the fact that she has eaten other things

fast because with mayonnaise I figure it's like someone who's just really good at the the one thing they can do because mayonnaise is again I like mayonnaise but you know speed eating right how do you figure out that that's your talent yeah yeah well it's it's it's just wild to me that she she has other things that she can eat fast. I don't know. I feel like you just get real good at one food. That's wild. Especially because pasta and hot dogs are so tasty.

It's surprising she's also in this mayonnaise zone where she's just eating straight up mayonnaise. But again, it's a good lubricant. Are you allowed to use a straw when you eat the mayonnaise? That's a good question. That's an excellent question. I did not watch the video, but there is a video of her doing it and i sent you guys a screen cap because i found the setup funny but if people want to see her do it i know she uses a spoon and just spoons it out of like jars from the store of mayonnaise yeah all right well i'm watching the

video the screen cap i saw it's like like a Guinness person with a stopwatch and her in front of a table of mayonnaise to do it. But the table has eight jars of mayonnaise on it, which feels to me like a real over-expectation if the new record is three and a half. How is she going to go off for eight all of a sudden? You can also watch her eat the pasta. Okay, I'm happy to

report that you know have you ever watched speed eating before where like there's like a technique sometimes where they're like inhaling it uh in the case of mayonnaise it's just someone chowing down on mayonnaise yeah she's just housing it like it's ice cream at 3 a.m like it's just it's just uh i think what it is is that there's not much competition here in the world of mayonnaise eating so it's really just how much mayonnaise can you physically stomach in this amount of time it looks like like there's no technique she's just shoveling it in her mouth that's it i mean good for her she found her calling but like yeah i'd love to know like after this what percentage of her body is mayonnaise yeah at some point the fda says she can't be labeled a person anymore now she's

now she's a label this mayonnaise 62% oil Linda she's more oil eggs and vinegar now than person but I think I think this tale of eating a whole bunch of mayonnaise leads very naturally into the first of three takeaways on the episode takeaway number one there is a surprising amount of psychological research into why people dislike things like mayonnaise. No, I believe that. There's a lot of science we can draw on. Yeah. Yeah, because people like Doritos, they do endless experiments and science to get the right flavor thing that makes people.

And McDonald's, they all do this to try to hook people. experiments and science to get like the right flavor thing that makes people and like mcdonald's like they all do this to try to hook people there's like that food science element and then also there is an entire field of science uh studying disgust like a lot of psychologists who just who study how and why do we become disgusted by something and the internet has interviewed some of these scientists and so we have stuff about it in particular from a popular science article called mayonnaise is disgusting and science agrees by kendra pierre louis we've also got right out of here kendra wired uh yeah get out of here kendra she also in the article she just openly says like i'm writing this because i hate mayonnaise like i'm completely biased i really want to what do i think it's really fun weird what a weird mission to go on you know who's

probably paying here is the uh ketchup the ketchup no fossil fuel company oh right mayonnaise uh for becoming a source of power well also there is like we all know there are a lot of people who don't like mayonnaise and there's like i feel like there's a readership for something like that. And also the Popular Science article interviews Herbert Stone, who is a food sensory consultant who has worked with companies including Hellman's in the past. So there's kind of that food science thing. And there's a very not scientific number, but he gives a ballpark figure. He says, quote, the percentage of people who don't like mayo, it's probably close to 20%. It's not trivial. Also, you will find this kind of polarization in other countries around the world. It's not just Western Europe.

You'll find a similar degree of like-dislike in Asia as well. End quote. And this guy is like a professional food scientist? He's a food doctor. It sounds like an easy job when he's just throwing out numbers he's just like i don't know 20 right yeah like that seems that i have no degree that seems high because i don't think i've met i've met people who don't really like mayonnaise i've never met somebody who's disgusted by it i mean i get it it's a big it's a big vat of gooey eggs

and oil like i get why that people would find that disgusting you know yeah i don't know that's all dead on because i think there are also a few ways to reach the point of not liking mayonnaise and one of them here is the science of disgust uh and it's a whole psychological field that gets into like people's politics and morality and and injustices and things but we're talking about mayonnaise okay. Okay, I thought you were about to say morality plays into whether or not you like mayonnaise. Turns out everybody who likes mayonnaise, they're evil, according to this study. They were able to quantify evil, and we have figured out that you are evil for liking this. Congratulations. Hey, that's theology, folks folks that's what it is all right that's most of it yeah yeah you die you die you

go to the pearly gates and they're like uh-uh mayonnaise get down there down there mayonnaise lover yeah that's why the gates are pearly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Covered in mayonnaise. Covered and slathered in mayonnaise. It's not clouds. Why do you think they call it Miracle Whip? It's all connected. It's all connected. So one scientist popular science interviews is Paul Rosen, who is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. He's also researched disgust since the 1980s, like how disgust works.

And one theory that he and other people have found is that disgust originally evolved as a way to keep humans safe. Like the one prime thing they've found is that the like first and most universal disgust that we all have is feces we we we really all don't like it uh for the most part um for the most part so when we become disgusted by feces that's an excellent way to prevent it from spreading diseases in like a community of early humans and so we learn pretty early to avoid this stuff and the disgust is seen as kind of a useful mechanism because it keeps us hygienic. Yeah, that checks out that it's a survival instinct. It's our body saying, don't put that near your body.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like, yeah, don't eat that, whatever it is. And it does make sense that more foods like mayonnaise would do that because that's a that's something that could spoil very easily it like i think people can have bad mayonnaise experiences right i feel like food poisoning and mayonnaise probably go hand in hand depending on how the mayonnaise is stored yeah yeah so it makes sense why your body would be like i don't know about that i don't know about that goop you're eating. Yeah, that's all right on. And then in the article, Rosen says, as far as he knows,

nobody has ever done a specific disgust study involving mayonnaise. But one conjecture he posits is that mayonnaise's texture might be the culprit because, quote, soft and slimy things are often decayed and tend to be disgusting. Yeah. So it's like there also might be an underlying thing of like, somehow this reminds me of decay and rot and other bad things. I was going to say. It's like an uncanny valley thing. It has the texture of death, for sure. Like, it's just, it's weird. It's like, it's gooey, but like a little sticky, too.

There's something not right about the texture of mayonnaise, for sure. Not like other condiments, I would say. I don't even fully like it. I keep a safe distance from it. I put it on certain meals, but I don't dollop it on. I don't love spoonfuls upon spoonfuls. You're like, Mayo, I love you, but I don't need that much of you. A little of you goes a long way. Yeah, and that's another way people

get disgusted by mayonnaise. The website Bustle interviewed sensory science consultant Lauren Rogers, and she said, quote, food texture is often split into three key areas. The initial phase, which is the first bite, the masticatory phase, which is chewing or mouth movement, and the residual phase after swallowing, end quote. And she says, basically, we get different cues in each area and also if foods are mixed with other foods that impacts it. So I think it's why I assume all three of us would be disgusted by just eating whole spoonfuls of mayonnaise like that speed eater but are into it

with other stuff yeah that's that would be a little too much a little too much mayonnaise right in fairness to mayonnaise i wouldn't do that with a lot of condiments you know i wouldn't chug ranch dressing uh like condiments in general are not things that you want to eat like soup right yeah they're not they're you want to eat like soup. Right, yeah. They're not designed to be, you know, poured into a glass and drank. I'd say the only thing that I would drink and have drunk in is hot sauce. Like, I will eat hot sauce like it's its own food. Okay, so you're saying that, like, casually, like it's a normal thing?

After going on this long diatribe about how you have to that casually like it's a normal thing after going on this long diatribe about how you have to keep mayonnaise at arm's length, and now you're talking about just casually drinking hot sauce? Yeah. What's the problem? I just want to make sure that you're aware of that. Hot sauce is more soupy, depending on the hot sauce you get. It can be a little thinner and it's delicious

it's delicious it's like spice soup no it isn't it's not at all depends on the hot sauce they come in a lot of different flavors if you find the one that's right for you you'll pour that right in your mouth

I mean you will you will not the general you specifically will pour that in your mouth i mean you will you will you will you will everybody not not the general you specifically will pour that in your mouth but also like i love how strong that psychology of disgust is like it wouldn't just be disgusting for me to do that with hot sauce i'm a little disgusted imagining you doing it right like not even me doing it sure it's hard well yeah i think that's every everything right like if someone takes a bite out of a sandwich and they're like you want a bite it's like gross but if you take a bite out of a sandwich you're like the sandwich

is still great because it's my it's my it's my mouth i don't know i think it's just like anything involving your own mouth is like a okay that. That's true. Everybody's different with it. Because it's yours. Yeah, it's the devil you know. Exactly. Yeah, my mouth is a mess, too. Like, it's not. I know this, but I still, you know, I'm fine with it.

I approve of your mouth. I support your mouth. Thank you. I don't. Cool. That's fair, Tom. That's fair. Fair's fair fair fair fair i think from here we got two more takeaways let's get into takeaway number two the name mayonnaise probably comes from two separate eras of mediter history. That is unexpected. The name mayonnaise probably comes from two eras of Mediterranean military history.

That's from history and war and stuff. Yeah. Huh. What's the story there? Because it's a very weird name now that you mention it. Right. It's very French. I feel like especially in the US, we usually turn names like that into something not french like like we don't just keep calling it it's amazing we didn't yeah we didn't call it

like freedom sauce after after 2003 man the bush listeners who are very young the bush era was so dumb you don't even know like it was the worst mean, we're living through a pretty dumb era right now. Sure, oh, sure, sure. Yeah. Yeah. The Bush era was dumb in a different way. Yeah, that's right. Well, and first thing with this, this is the generally agreed upon origin of the name mayonnaise.

We'll also touch on alternative stories at the end. But this story starts with a French nobleman in the mid-1700s who was also a military general and his name was louis francois armand de vinaigre du plessis duke de richelieu and you've made if you recognize those words are mayonnaise yeah i thought this was gonna be like the earl of sandwich yeah it's just their name oh no no i did richelieu. That's the bad guy in the Three Musketeers. Really?

Yeah. And so this guy was the actual grandnephew of the actual Cardinal Richelieu, who is a real person, real cardinal, advisor to King Louis XIII. And then also the fictional version of him is the bad guy in the Three Musketeers. Yeah. So it's that same family. And from there, in 1756, the Duke de Richelieu invaded the island of Menorca, which is in the Mediterranean. It's one of the Balearic Islands, which are east of the Iberian Peninsula. At the time, it was owned by Britain. And this was the start of the Seven Years' War, which in American

history class in school, I was told is the French and Indian War, but it's the Seven Years' War. It was a massive Britain versus France global conflict. So he invades an island as part of that. And from there, he succeeds. And his biggest win is he captures the main city on the island of Menorca, which is called Mahon. So that's a very important name here, the city of Mahon. And then from there, he tries to hold a victory banquet for his win.

And the chef wants to make a tasty sauce. And then the story splits in two from here. Either what happened is the chef tried to make a standard French sauce that's cream and eggs, but they were out of cream, so he substituted oil and made an oil and egg sauce. Or locals already made an oil and egg sauce and told him about it. But either way, they had an oil and egg sauce that they named Mahonez after capturing Mahone. So they were celebrating.

So they just while celebrating invented mayonnaise. That's wild. they just while celebrating invented mayonnaise that's wild i can definitely see the invention being uh miss like uh like well what do we have oil what do we got what do we got oil fine egg vinegar yeah sorry and then try you're like wow this is actually good all right it feels like it was birthed of desperation um it doesn't it mayonnaise definitely doesn't feel planned no no i don't think so whether accidental or desperation it's it doesn't feel like that this was a a written down right i feel like a lot of dairy products have that because like cheese feels the same way it's like i feel like a lot of dairy products have that because like cheese feels the same way it's like i feel like the first person who ate cheese was like i don't know right all right let

me yeah oh hey it's good it's spoiled milk like yeah yeah it was just like it feels like cheese was invented by someone walking in a room and going oh no yeah i'm i'm like really hungry so i don't have much else. So, you know, either I die or I don't. Let's try this. But yeah, and so they brought it back to mainland France, and then it became famous and popularized as mayonnaise. So you've got one war here where it's the French fighting the British

on what is now a Spanish island. The other era here is where the name of the city of Mahon comes from, because it turns out it's named after Mago Barca, who was a Carthaginian general who lived in the 200s BC. He was one of Hannibal's brothers and fought the Romans in the Second Punic War, and according to legend, he founded the city in between fights in Spain and Italy today. So we've got the Seven Years' War and also the ancient Romans and Carthaginians all contributing to the name of mayonnaise all at once. That's pretty wild. I mean, it does kind of taste like it was birthed from war.

I get it. Centuries of strife. Yeah. No, you're coming down hard on mayonnaise mr mr hot sauce drinker look i like mayonnaise it just it does feel like a war condiment i don't know it does feel like a product of rationing yeah yeah it's like what do we got put it in there i don't know yeah it also feels like i'm surprised do we have evidence of it being invented elsewhere too? Because it also doesn't seem like, it feels like one of those things that's invented five times at the same point. Because it's just eggs and oil.

So there's probably multiple people like, well, let's put these two basic ingredients together. That's an excellent question. And it leads us into the few other stories about where it might have come from. And it leads us into the few other stories about where it might have come from. Yeah. One is that the sauce might have originally been called Bayonets after the town of Bayonne, which is apparently famous for its hams. And then this was made as a sauce for hams.

There's also a theory that it came from the French verb manier, which means to handle, or from the old French word moyeux, which is an old French word for a yolk like an egg yolk so there's all kinds of theories for the name but the the apparently most commonly accepted one is this like massive military operation uh and dinner after that's pretty wild we threw a mayonnaise party afterwards mayonnaise for everyone just toasting it mayonnaise for all off of that we are going to a short break followed by a whole new takeaway i'm jesse thorne i just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes. I'm going to manifest and roam.

All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, one you have no choice but to embrace because, yes, listening is mandatory.

The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. Well, that's kind of a good segue into the final takeaway. Takeaway number three. In Russia, mayonnaise might be the most beloved cultural legacy of the soviet era okay and are you guys at all familiar with i didn't know about it till researching but are you all familiar with russian mayonnaise culture no way into mayonnaise that phrase delights me

russian mayonnaise culture is this this like they're clubbing? Like it's a nightlife culture? I'm trying to even fathom what that would be. Russian mayonnaise culture. It's mostly eating it a lot, but there's specific stuff. People doing potlucks where they're swapping mayo? I don't know. So we have a few sources here.

One of them is an NPR, the salt blog. It's an interview with someone who made a Soviet cookbook in the present day. Also a memoir of eating mayonnaise in the Soviet Union as a child in the New York Review of Books. And a few other sources talking about mayonnaise in Russia. Just a memoir about eating mayonnaise. Yeah, Tom, that one really stuck out. In my mind, the entire memoir is about eating mayonnaise in the Soviet Union. It's not just a section of it, it's the entire thesis.

Yeah, absolutely. And then I had more mayonnaise. It was just the start of every chapter it was a cold february morning in 1979 in east germany well and so the the gist of this here is that to this day russians are pretty obsessed with eating mayonnaise on stuff even compared to other countries and a lot of it has to do with the history of the soviet food system and how it handled mayonnaise specifically because mayonnaise was introduced to imperialist russia at the turn of the Soviet food system and how it handled mayonnaise specifically. Because mayonnaise was introduced to imperialist Russia at the turn of the 20th century, but it stayed there through Soviet times.

And according to this writer of the Soviet cookbook, his name is Pavel Syutkin, he said that the Soviet food system was nationally standardized into specific items all made by the government. So food was kind of the same in a lot of parts of the Soviet Union. And one of them was mayonnaise. They made it in a really fancy and appealing way for people. Yeah, is their mayonnaise just better than ours? It's hard to say better.

They make it with sunflower oil, usually, as the oil. And apparently that gives it a different flavor that people are excited about. They would also produce it in very small jars. They were only 200 gram jars, which is like less than half a pound. And the name they put on it was Mayonnaise Provencal, after the Provence region of southern France. You're the Soviet person getting sacks of potatoes and bread and very industrial things, and then this little jar of mayonnaise. And it's like, ooh.

They made it really appealing, Ooh, you know, like they made it really appealing. Ooh, fancy mayonnaise. I can see that. Like I can see, I've never considered that mayonnaise can be better than the mayonnaise I'm eating now, but like, yeah, I can see fancy, uh, Russian mayonnaise. And now I want it more than anything like right now. Why are they keeping it from us yeah what's what's going on over there why are they hoarding their fancy mayonnaise yeah it's in a little bottle yeah what do you what you don't need all that you can give us

a fancy little bottle give me your little bottle of mayonnaise share your little bottle fellas this leads to my plan we're gonna break into the crowd yeah i still want to do it uh oceans 11 heist or we're stealing mayonnaise yeah from russia the mayonnaise heist sends with people eating sandwiches like yeah it's pretty good you know it's not bad it's not bad we lost two guys doing this but like yeah it was good it's good good mayonnaise one guy got cut in half by an ak-47 but this man is all right right like that like that's that first scene in golden eye like they were there to get mayonnaise and then when he leaves trevelyan behind that's's the schism between them. Yeah. Yeah. We lost Sean Bean, but we got some mayonnaise.

You mean the stuff you can buy in a store? No, this is a little different. Yeah, just slightly. It's a little different. Yeah, it's also, I think it's the kind of thing where the mayonnaise was at least okay. And then the rest of the Soviet food system was terrible. This cookbook author says, quote, in the 1920s, 30s, standardizing the food supply made some sense.

In a country where most people didn't even know the word sanitary and where the trade system was ruined, this was a way to control everything for technology and quality, end quote. So they were like rebuilding their country's food system. And mayonnaise was one of the things that got up and running in a way where people were like, this is edible enough. And so then they were excited about it. It was bad to be in the Soviet Union, it seems like. It was not good. But you had the mayonnaise. You did have mayonnaise. There's also a specific story of the, this is according to mclean's the soviet union had a food industry

commissar his name was anastas mccoyan and he went on a 1936 tour of the united states and one of his favorite things he ate was our mayonnaise and then he went back to russia and had them ramp up production of mayonnaise and said like this is one of the things we need to get going uh and because it's all centralized they did this is the secret so we gave them mayonnaise are you saying that we have the good mayonnaise after all uh usa usa yeah us usa usa yeah it seems pretty good usa yeah so that's what we learned in our mayonnaise heist movie is like in the end the man the good mayonnaise was here all along yeah it was at home you know the mayonnaise is always greener yeah on the other side of the globe yeah exactly right okay it turns out we did have the best foods and then we all just kind of hug

you know yeah under a best foods logo. And then the other reason mayonnaise was exciting to Soviet people is that their food system was, like, corrupt and poorly run. But especially corrupt. There was a lot of, like, withholding better things for government officials, and it was not good. There were tears. They get the good mayonnaise. Yes. There were tiers. They get the good mayonnaise. Yes.

Apparently they had separate tiers of food distribution where there were state-run stores for most people and then separate systems for the army and the railroad ministry. And then a top tier for government officials called nomenclatura who were important party people. And then they just got rich people food secretly, and it was horribly corrupt. But mayonnaise became something that was more and more withheld by the richer and more powerful

people. Bougie mayo. Yeah, yeah. And here, mayonnaise costs money, but it's relatively available to everybody. And according to Anastasia Adele's memoir of growing up soviet quote mayonnaise was the monopoly of the soviet state and the state could never produce enough of it also you could never just buy mayonnaise you could only get it sometimes in a favor exchange sometimes in a special distribution center for important people mayonnaise was currency yes it's like it's like social

currency yeah man and like it's amazing like currency currency apparently also people would tend to like if they had any power over the distribution of food they would hold back a little bit of good stuff for themselves and then trade it for favors later and so these little mayonnaise jars were one of the moves it was like i'm gonna keep this and make deals later yeah like like uh like the term grease in some palms could you just like literally do that like be like here here's something for your troubles and just rub a little mayonnaise on their hand yeah just you just have pockets of loose mayonnaise yeah pockets of loose mayonnaise that you just like you get a dollop of people's hands yeah exactly that's how

i choose to imagine this process. And I will not change. No, I mean, you're likely correct. Yeah, why would it be anything different? Yeah, just a little mayonnaise on the palm. And then they do an investigation. It's like, we caught these corrupt officials mayonnaise-handed. We caught them. Yeah, yeah.

With their hands in the mayonnaise jar. But you can't cuff them because they're slippery. It's a whole thing. Yeah, yeah. Hands in the mayonnaise jar. But you can't cuff them because they're slippery. It's a whole thing. Yeah. But yeah, and so it's a very centralized food system and mayonnaise is being made very special and very high value. And then there were a couple other ways they even more than that prioritized mayonnaise. One of them is just the sad thing of the Soviet Union having like constant food shortages in the winter.

And mayonnaise was effective at being high calorie. So it helps you get through that and also disguises the quality of other ingredients. Like you can cover it up with mayonnaise flavor. Yeah, it sure does. So in a way we can all understand it was like useful in these horrible Soviet winters to have mayonnaise. Yeah, man. Yeah, for sure.

No, that speaks to me. And then the other way the Soviets made it specifically special is they made it the key ingredient in most of the foods for Soviet Christmas. it the key ingredient in most of the foods for soviet christmas and by soviet christmas i mean the ussr was an officially atheist state and so then they turned new year's eve into the one holiday and people would have like a new year's tree and like do a lot of the old christmas pageantry but on new year's eve in an atheist way. With mayonnaise? Yeah. And then they kind of came up with, oh, well, we need like holiday dishes for this new thing.

And so they, most of them were heavy on mayonnaise. Yeah. So then families were scrambling to get it for the holidays. Yeah. Decorated the tree with mayonnaise. Gonna have a jar of mayonnaise underneath the New Year's tree. More or less, yes. Again, it's like, yeah.

Yeah, Anastasia Adele, like her remembrance of it, she says her favorite Soviet holiday food was called salad Olivier, which she calls, quote, a Soviet rhapsody of cubed boiled potatoes, bologna, eggs, pickles, and canned green peas in a bunch of mayonnaise. That was the food. Calm down, Anastasia. A rhapsody? Yeah.

That is, yeah, that's ration food. That's liver and onions food. Yeah, you just lubed up with mayonnaise. I mean, I get it. I mean, yeah, i get it yeah yeah yeah i get it but yeah settle down yeah right a rhapsody well it's like and then chelsea says quote without mayonnaise there could be no new year in the soviet union a better half of holiday dishes hinged upon it end quote uh and it is probably obvious to people but it's the kind

of thing where i don't want to make fun of their culture. But also, it seems like a lot of this was driven by horrible Soviet government policies that are in our sight. Oh, yeah. No, it's, yeah. No, it sounds, I mean, to compare cultures, it sounds like their mayonnaise was our, like, Jell-O in the 70s. Oh, yeah. We're like, stick it in Jell-O. And it's like, no, don't do that.

But we kept doing it. Oh, yeah. No, yeah. I mean, I already said it's liver and onions. It's like, no, don't do that. But we kept doing it. Oh, yeah. No, yeah. I mean, I already said that's liver and onions. Oh, yeah. They're not the only country that has developed culture around foods that were just given to them because of rationing. Right. That's true.

Yeah, you work with what they give you. You work with what you got, man. Still, there's like this like... All mid-20th century food was nightmares too. Yeah, in all countries. That's what I was about to say. It's more about when it was made, I feel like. It's just like, man, they did not have food right back then. They had not figured it out. And I just mean everybody back then.

I mean, yeah. I mean, also, there were a lot of global conflicts going on back then. Sure, sure, sure. That too. Depleted resources there was a lot of things they hadn't figured out yeah yeah yeah and then also like now we're past the soviet union but also apparently the nostalgia of mayonnaise has stayed and partly because it's one of the only so traditions that is not sad. Like, that's just food. It's fine. It's one of the only Soviet traditions that's not poisoning people with uranium. Right. And then the top mayo...

Are we past the Soviet Union? Oh, true. And then the top mayo brand in Russia today is still called mayonnaise Provencal after this name that it had after a region in France in the Soviet Union. And also saying guys a picture of a few years ago, there was a popular Russian national tabloid named Come Somoskaya Pravda that included a sample statute of mayonnaise with every issue of their newspaper. This is fantastic. Yeah. Because like, I would never have to buy mayonnaise you just get up and be like i'm gonna get my stories a little bit of mayonnaise on the side here uh and i got my mayonnaise for the day i love that nothing on

this packaging if if you don't if you don't if you can't read or speak russian nothing on this packaging suggests that it's mayonnaise no yeah yeah it looks like a tomato sauce there's a lot of tomatoes on it that is a tomato yeah there's a lot of vegetables that aren't in mayonnaise on it a lot of green vegetables there's no green vegetables the packaging is a is a real is a real enigma you really can't figure this one out it looks like salad dressing maybe that's it put the mayonnaise on your salad

I don't know if I just saw this picture I would assume it's like a salad dressing type like a vinaigrette or something yeah that's the resemblance for sure yeah it does say I i can read cerulean um it says spaboda uh oh mayonnaise uh 67 percent and then the bottom word is provincial yeah i didn't know you can read cerulean tom that's amazing

i yeah i can yeah yeah no. I took Russian in high school. Oh. Yeah. Don't know why, but I did. So that's your cover story. All right. Yeah, yep, yep. You know those like 101 language textbooks where it starts with like extremely basic pronouns and conjugate? I hope it was like pronouns, mayonnaise, then basic conjugation.

No, we never we did never learned about mayonnaise okay all right never learned about mayonnaise not once didn't come up didn't come up well i mean all right that's cool it's cool it's cool but like i could i probably could have told you it says mayonnaise on there, right? I mean, maybe. I don't know. I'm just saying. I'm just saying that the odds that mayonnaise was on there was great. Are you trying to catch Tom in the act of pretending to read Cyrillic?

What are you trying to say? I'm trying to neg Tom. I'm trying to neg Tom's abilities. Catch him mayo-handed? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Catch him mayo-handed? With a hand in the mayo jar? Yeah. With a hand in the mayo jar.

Folks, that is the main episode for this week. My thanks to David Christopher Bell and Tom Ryman for slathering so much fun onto one podcast. Also, who came up with the verb slathering? It is vaguely off-putting, I feel, and I like mayonnaise. Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. If you support this show on Patreon.com, please do, because patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is the word mayo, which is a seemingly normal abbreviation that recently sparked a huge tech startup, a major lawsuit, a government conspiracy, and some kind of joking, kind of not joking death threats.

So visit SIFpod.fun for all of that, for a library of nearly two dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you so much for exploring mayonnaise with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, there is a surprising amount of scientific-ish research into why people dislike mayonnaise. Takeaway number two, the name mayonnaise probably comes from two entire separate eras of Mediterranean military history. And takeaway number three, in Russia, mayonnaise might be the most beloved cultural legacy of the entire Soviet era. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great. David Christopher Bell and Tom Ryman are the two heads of a fantastic podcast

network and streaming channel. It's called Gamefully Unemployed. It is one of my favorite internet things. We'll also have links to Tom Ryman's excellent writing at Collider.com and Dave Bell's excellent script writing over at the YouTube news and comedy channel Some More News, which is hosted by Cody Johnston, produced by Katie Stoll, many other pals there too. That's a just very good thing because friends are doing it, and also it's the right politics. So that's the place. Check it out. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones.

A great article in Popular Science. It's called Mayonnaise is Disgusting and Science Agrees by Kendra Pierre-Lewis. Then an amazing piece from NPR's All Things Considered. It's called Happy Birthday, Dear Mayo, We Hold You Dear. That's by Debbie Elliott. And then a first-person mini-memoir that was published in the New York Review of Books. It's called A Soviet New Year with Mayonnaise. That's by Anastasia Adele. One of my favorite things I've ever read about the Soviet period, and it came through mayonnaise. Really

great. Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by The Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show, and thank you to every listener. I am thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then.