I was writing up an Applegeeks Lite, and in the process of it became curious as to the composition of mayo.
Yeah, sometimes life is like that – you’re born, go to school, get a job, and then wonder how mayo is made. What a magical journey.
ANYWAY.
Some backstory: I’m not a fan of mayo. I’ve had it once in my life, and actually retched. I know my sentiment isn’t shared by everyone.
BACK TO MY STORY.
So I ask David and Hawk and Lani, my coworkers, if they know what goes into Mayo. No one knows. Weird … we know what’s in ketchup, peanut butter, and mustard. Why not mayo? So of course, I went to the one place I knew I’d find answers. Yup: Wikipedia.
Wikipedia says Mayonnaise is made by slowly adding oil to an egg yolk, mustard, vinegar, and salt. There’s a section about a homemade recipe that I skimmed – it says homemade mayonnaise can be made to taste like traditional mayo if properly seasoned with salt, pepper, mustard, lemon juice, vinegar, and a little paprika. With you so far. But then I read this sentence: Homemade mayonnaise can also be made using raw semеn, with no yolks at all, at least if it is done at high speed in a food processor. … WHAT?! I refreshed, and it was gone. Weird. Was I just seeing things? Refresh again … it’s back?! Alright, time to check the edit history.
I compared the latest two sets of edits – you can see the changes compared here. Apparently these two guys are at war. Hayford Peirce is the valiant defender of the mayonnaise Wikipedia entry, and he’s battling some asshat with the sense of humor of a seventh grader. Fight on, Mr. Peirce. Truth and Justice are on your side.
I’ve only come out of the whole event with more questions, first and foremost being: How does one become an expert on mayonnaise? Most troubling.
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 1:19 PM and is filed under Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I have to wonder a couple of things here:
A) Does Mr. Peirce constantly monitors the content of the Mayo page, keeping an eye out for incorrect info? And,
B) Can mayo be made with semen?
Actually, I think I’d rather not know the answer to either…
I would hope that Mr. Peirce just has a bot watchign recent changes for words like seamen. While that may be distrubing, I think it’s less so than the thought of him just watching Mayo…
The real question should be: (And I know it’s gross) will mayo made with semen have a better taste as compared to the egg yolk? I await the firing squad. *takes out a blindfold*
What about people who read that and thought it was true? …DEAR LORD SOMEBODY SAVE THEM! :P
At least you wouldn’t have to add extra salt. :D
Interesting thoughts…I have to say I’m a rather big fan of mayonnaise; the real stuff not the “lite” versions. Despite it’s ingredients, I still say a sandwich isn’t a sandwich without it.
Intereting thought though, one of the largest suppliers of Mayo in Russia is Unilever…the same people who bring us Axe. Yummy :)
I have always hated mayo. Now knowing whats in its even more gross. Now I wonder whats in miracle whip that they won’t even call it mayo. Salad dressing my ass.
It seems Mr. Peirce gave up. But I fixed it for now. No, you can’t make Semen Mayo.
Ooo. I saw your undo edit!
Just thought I’d mention it.
If you think THIS is gross…. stay the hell away from Cheese Wizz…. One small hint…it’S true color before they add orange colorant is dark grey…
Ohhhhhh barf.
This is where I ask where the hell do you find the time to look into these things. :P
Semen mayo…I’m so disturbed :(
Hahaha, I’m sorry Rose. *pats*
Haha, I never knew you could check the last updates in a wikipedia entry. I’m just not a wikipedia professional.
I see a lot of people don’t enjoy mayonnaise. I like it >
Whoops. Brackets.
The rest of that comment said, “What would your tuna fish sandwich be without mayo!?”
Mayonnaise is one of the classic white sauces of French cuisine, along with bearnaise, hollandaise, bechamel, veloute, beurre blanc, etc. In other words, it’s not surprising knowledge if you’re a chef.
And being a chef also immunizes you against ingredients others might consider gross. Escargot and foie gras, anyone?
Actually, mayonnaise is Spanish. It is named after the capital (Mahon) of the Spanish isle it came from (Menorca)
We had to make mayonnaise in our 7th grade home ec class and then we had to boil the leftover eggs and make egg salad. I don’t remember it tasting any different than egg salad made with store-bought mayo. I think it’s made with egg whites though, not the yolks.
Haha, I never realized it until you stated this. Egg salad is entirely made with eggs, that pwns.
You read the List of ingrediants on the jar then you make it your self…without blowing up the mixer and getting the mayo all over. Mayo rulz!
Well, I’ve gone to culinary school and I’ve made mayo and it was actually the best I’ve ever had. It’s a lot nicer to make your own, it has better flavor and such. But if you don’t like it, you don’t like it. It is a pain in the ass to make, that’s for sure.
Hmm… by having a look on the german wiki it is mentioned that you can replace the egg yolk (not white) with ordinary milk. So no semen there. And though I’m not a big fan of it, I like some of its variants, like aioli and rémoulade.
do you really know? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup
Ketchup (or less commonly catsup) also known as Red Sauce or Tomato Sauce is a popular condiment, usually made with ripened tomatoes. The basic ingredients in modern ketchup are tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, salt, allspice, cloves, and cinnamon. Onions, celery, and other vegetables are frequent additions. In the UK, Australia, South Africa, Malaysia, Iran and New Zealand and the Middle East, the terms tomato sauce, red gravy or red sauce are variously used to refer to a vinegar-less variant of ketchup or the variety discussed in this article.
Ketchup has not always been made out of tomatoes. It started out as a general term for sauce, typically made of mushrooms or fish brine with herbs and spices. Mushroom ketchup is still available in some countries, such as the UK. Some popular early main ingredients include blueberry, anchovy, oyster, lobster, walnut, kidney bean, cucumber, cranberry, lemon, and grape.
There’s also banana cutsup, that you could get in the Caribbean, I dunno if you can get it anywhere else. But… it was spicy. Why is banana cutsup spicy?
They have some here too in the philippines, and no its not spicy. i guess its the brand.
I introduced wikipedia to my whole high school, on the whole I think it was a bad move. We got banned from editing after 35 people tried to edit the article on Jesus. Making allusions to Penny arcade…
O_O… after the second half of that story I’m afraid…
I think my heart stopped when I read the sentence about semen. That’s not funny, the guys a jerk, making innocent people interested in mayo do double takes. Loser.
“How does one become an expert on mayonnaise?”
Well, you live in a country like Belgium or the Netherlands… where we eat the stuff all the time (as anybody knows who has watched Pulp Fiction).
From personal experience, i know it is not that easy to make yourself. The procedure is simple enough, but in order for the taste to be right you need to proper quantities of each ingredient. Bad mayo is horrible (this includes about 90 of all retail mayo), but good homemade mayo is just excellent.
there are, of course, also the valid wikipedia entries: A study by State University of New York researchers says heat generated from laptops can significantly elevate the temperature of the scrotum, potentially putting sperm count at risk. The study, which included more than two dozen men ages 13 to 35, found that the sitting position required to balance a laptop can raise scrotum temperature by as much as 2.1°C. Heat from the laptop itself can raise the temperature by another 0.7°C, bringing the potential total increase to 2.8°C. Heating of the scrotum is known to cause temporary sterility in men. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laptops
Haaahahahaha
ON NOES ME BABIEZ
This is why I always use a desktop…
I prefer miracle whip, but for a chicken sandwich mayo is fine. Miracle Whip is so easy to us eto make delicious meals. Egg sald? mash some boiled eggs and add miracle whip! Tuna salad? Drain cans of tuna and add miracle whip!
Yeah, that’s all I got…
I’m a little shocked you didn’t know what went in mayo, Ananth. I guess the fact my head is stuffed little tidbits like this makes me assume everyone’s is.
I still love ya though.
Over here [U.K.], a lot of us prefer salad cream. To me, mayo has always been too bland.
Ok, after reading this, how many people went over to the article and helped to battle against the onslaught? *sheepishly raises hand*
Anyways, that’s weird.
Just goes to show the problems that can arise from the anonymity of the internet when coupled with juvenile antics. I’m guilty of thinking it rather funny, but inappropriate in the form presented. A mock webpage would be funnier, with diagrams of course.
now this is a question hmm. personaly i like mayo but i’m not really a fan of it tho so i’m more inclined to belive the semen trick because i know some stupid people and i kno if i did that and told them it was mayo they would still eat it. however it is wrong because said person is trying to spread false information and thats bad seeing as about 93% of people belive everything they read on the internet. sad as this is it still means those people are stupid and should not be allowed near a computer. Viva la l33t!
Noooo, the semen part is 100% false. Don’t even entertain the notion.
A little while ago I was thinking, “What would make the grossest cereal possible?” And I thought Mayonnaise would somehow be involved with it. So I made a box of
“Mayonnaise Cubes Cereal” just the other day.
I never liked just plain mayo. Never have, never will.
I like sauces that contain mayo, but not just plain mayo.
I also like pickles but hate cucumber, and heavily dislike fresh tomato but love salsa, marinara sauces, and pesto.
I blaim vinegar and salt in all of these instances. They can fix almost every ingredient I just plain dislike. Strangely, I dislike most vinagerettes.
Just to let everyone know, Ceaser dressing is oil, raw egg, vinegar, anchovie (traditionally), and seasoning ingredients (lemon juice, salt, pepper). Sound familiar?
…LMAOnnaise…
At home we never use anything but freshly made mayo. It’s odd to me to see people eat that awfull stuff out of jars when it’s SO easy to make your own.
You take an egg, a spoon of mustard, a spoon of water and a coffee cup of sunflower oil . (i use my coffee cup for everything!). That is the perfect base for mayo. Now use a mixer. Mayo can “work” or can “fail” but as soon as it becomes a yellow-ish smooth substance, you are there. You could add vinegar, lemon or any other stuff to it before mixing, but i prefer it without all the extra stuff. Pepper and salt can be added too.
The mayo you get this way is smooth, fresh and way better than mayo in jars. You know what is in it! Also, most of the ingredients are stuff you have in the house anyway.
I find mayonaise to bland, garlic mayonnaise, however, is fantastic, tough I normally get it a bit too greasy.
The one that always freaks me out is worcestershire sauce. Why would anybody put anchovy and molasses anywhere near each other?
I knew what mayonnaise was before this… its basic food chemistry. The lemon juice is acidic enough that it “cooks” the egg (denaturing the proteins) in the same way heat does, giving mayonnaise its white color. The oil is added to make it less of a solid and more of a gel that is spreadable, and the remaining ingredients are for flavor and preservation.
It’s actually very easy to make homemade mayo. Simple recipe I use all the time is to put one egg yolk in a bowl, add about twice the volume of mustard. Stir with an electric batter (sorry don’t know the exact name, english is not my main language) on the lowest setting. After that, pour slowly vegetable oil (any kind will do, but avoid Olive oil and Peanut oil, they don’t make such a good taste) continuously while stirring the whole mixture. Never put a big splash of oil in one motion, else the mayo will never become firm as it’s supposed to. Then it’s a matter of how much you want, and if you like the taste. Near the end, you can add plenty of ingredients to change the taste.
You can either use it immediately, or refrigerate for a while. I wouldn’t keep it more than two days, however.
I would say the whole process takes about 5 minutes, and you can really make it taste very different from commercial ones.
Just want to mention that someone said lemon juice was necessary, but it’s really just to add taste.
Same with me, we never use bought mayo in our household.
I love garlic mayo, so nice when ppl walk around you like you would be a reef in the sea ;)
Anyway, a good tip is: use a handheld blender, dont use mixers.
salt, pepper, vinegar or lemon juice, egg yolk, a good mustard, some oil, (garlic or for remoulade: smooth hoed pickles, caper and parsley) then start blending it and add oil as long till the mayo gets the desired consistence. after 3 tries it never fails if you use a hand-held blender.
Inspiration, maybe?
[...] A while ago I made a post about mayo … [...]
problems with taking nexium
news
buy phentermine online
news
nice article…
nice article…
[...] I suppose that’s the innate problem with the whole user generated/edited content bit; you’re bound to get a jackass editing it sooner or later. The page is fixed now of course, it generally gets edited to what it’s supposed to be shortly after it’s edited to something retarded (Mayonnaise is made by raw sperm for 8 to 10 minutes). [...]