The opinions published by The Match are solely those of the author, and not of the entire publication, its staff, or Collegiate School. The Match welcomes thoughtful commentary and response to our content. You can respond in the comments below, but please do so respectfully. Letters to the Editors will be published, but they are subject to revision based on content or length. Letters can be sent to [email protected].
Starving, I open my boxed lunch provided for everyone on the field trip. I pull out the plastic silverware, napkin, chips, and a wrapped cookie. I reach my shaky hand into the box to grab the last item, a turkey and cheese sandwich. A sigh of relief comes over me when I see a mayonnaise packet at the bottom of the box. Perfect I think, they didn’t put any mayonnaise on this sandwich. As I unwrap the sandwich, I peel back the bread, something I do every time due to chronic trust issues, and within seconds see a layer of white spread onto the bread. I instantly gag, bunch up the sandwich, and throw it back into the box. Sadly, this is an occurrence that I am much too familiar with.
I hate mayonnaise. The gloopy texture and smell are just about enough to make me want to throw up. To see how other people in the Collegiate community felt about this condiment, The Match sent out a survey to the entire Upper School. The survey asked whether people liked, tolerated, or disliked mayonnaise; if they ate it if it were the main ingredient in something; how they commonly consumed mayonnaise; and if they had a preferred brand. From the 192 responses, I found that my hatred for mayonnaise is shared by 37.7 percent of the polled Collegiate population. Maybe I should start a club for anti-mayo students, considering that nothing brings people closer than a shared hatred for something. As for the other 35.1 percent of students who love mayonnaise, and 27.2 percent of people who can tolerate it, let’s just say that I am thankful for being a senior so that I don’t have to spend any extra time with mayo consumers.
Considering that mayonnaise is simply eggs, oil, salt, and an acid (usually vinegar or lemon juice), I should like it. I don’t dislike any of those ingredients and regularly eat them separately, but when they are emulsified together and turned into the nasty concoction known as mayonnaise, my stomach churns. If I had a time machine, the first thing I would do is go back to 1756 and tell the French chef of the Duc de Richelieu to not create mayonnaise. The spread was created for a celebratory dinner after the Dutch beat the British at the Battle of Port Mahon in Minorca, hence the chef named his spread “Mahonnaise.”
My hatred for mayonnaise has been turned into a self-proclaimed allergy. Since I despise this terrible spread, and because people seemingly enjoy slathering it on anything and everything that they can, whenever I go somewhere where a list of allergies is required, I sometimes list mayonnaise. Only recently did my mother and I become smart enough to forge this little white lie, which, if done sooner, would have saved me the extreme disappointment of hundreds of pre-made boxed lunches.
While I have gotten smart enough to both lie about having a mayonnaise allergy and pack extra granola bars to satiate me in boxed lunch situations, I pose a simple question: Why ruin a perfectly good sandwich with mayonnaise? Why not leave it off the sandwich and allow others to add it at their discretion? I have pondered this question thousands of times over an empty stomach.
Upon approaching Upper School Latin teacher Tyler Boyd about this very topic, he immediately said, “Oh, I hate mayonnaise. I think it is one of the world’s worst inventions. Mayonnaise on any sandwich ruins it.” Tucker Walker (‘22), a mayonnaise enthusiast, said, “I typically use mayo on sandwiches and hamburgers, because it adds a creamy texture and brings everything together. I think that there is a point where sometimes there is too much mayo in certain chicken salad recipes, but I always eat it and never steer away from it.”
Upper School Spanish teacher Hannah Curley said, “If I can’t taste the mayo on a sandwich, I don’t want it,” and Brent Hailes (‘22) said, “[I] used to eat it by itself. I loved it so much. I don’t eat it plain anymore, but still love it with every fiber in my body.” Jonathan Yackel (‘22) said, “If I don’t know it is in the thing, I am okay with it. But once I know, I can’t eat it.”
While I may never find a scientific answer for the reasoning behind the use of mayonnaise, I know that because of the evil spread, I live my life in fear. Even at social gatherings and parties, a time for celebration, I must keep my guard up.
Anytime I go to eat a sandwich or roll of some sort at a gathering, I check with my family members, who also hate mayonnaise, to see if they have tasted it yet. If they have, they will advise me to stay away or give me the green light to go ahead and eat whatever is in question. If they have not yet eaten the item in question, I have to brave the unknown all by myself. I can proudly say that it has been these moments of bravery that have made me the person I am today.
With every single sandwich, even the ones I make myself, I always peel back the bread to check for a thin layer of white. It’s a habit, and I never know who could poison my sandwich with mayonnaise when I am not looking. Sometimes, this process can get messy, as the thin layer of white could be butter or mayonnaise. Luckily, I have come up with a top-notch, scientifically proven method to decipher between the two. Butter melts easily, but mayonnaise has a higher melting point, so chances are a warm roll that still has a layer of white on it has mayonnaise, because butter would have melted. Ham biscuits are a common culprit of the “’Is It Mayo or Butter?” check, and sometimes, if it is too tricky to tell, you just have to avoid them altogether.
People who know me know that I refuse anything with mayonnaise on it. Sometimes, people get annoyed with this tendency and say things like “Charlotte, you can’t even taste it.” But I know that they are lying to me. Quinn Leonard (‘25) said, “[Mayonnaise] helps make cakes more fluffy.” As an avid cake baker and decorator, this comment just about broke me. I can’t even begin to imagine how foul mayonnaise would be in a cake.
While others debate over whether the best brand of mayonnaise is Duke’s, Heinz, Hellman’s, or even Miracle Whip, I argue that mayonnaise should not exist. It’s disgusting. Even people who claim to not like mayonnaise, and whom I have befriended more or less for this sole reason, betray me when I see them eat chicken salad, potato salad, coleslaw, ranch dressing, pimento cheese, Chick-Fil-A sauce, or the famous Taste Sauce.
I know many people who “dislike” mayonnaise but then proceed to drown their sandwiches in Taste Sauce, and their hamburgers and French fries in Jack Brown Sauce. Anne Carrington Hall (‘24) says, “[Mayonnaise is] only acceptable if it’s in a house sauce, [but] it’s still a little repulsive.”
To everyone who claims to hate mayonnaise but eats special sauces and any house sauce, I hate to break it to you, but these sauces are simply seasoned and flavored mayonnaise. People claim that these sauces are “different,” but I don’t see how. Flavored mayonnaise is still just mayonnaise at heart. Some restaurants even try to disguise flavored mayonnaise by calling it aioli. To me, this is fraud.
I have been told time and time again to “never say never,” but I can confidently say that I will never like, tolerate, or even consume mayonnaise. You can most likely catch me at lunch double-checking my bread and then proceeding to eat a plain sandwich with just turkey and cheese. Although I don’t like mayonnaise, do not let this stop you from inviting me to your next luncheon or pot-luck. Just go ahead and make a mental note of my “allergy,” know that I will check the bread of every item there, and that I will not be trying your famous deviled eggs or egg salad sandwiches.
“Bleh, it’s made out of eggs. Some people put it on everything (fat Americans).” – George Byford (‘25)
Disgust for mayonnaise goes beyond a strong dislike Miller explains that some people are extremely grossed out by mayonnaise because, well…they find its consistency similar to that of white, glutinous bodily fluids such as pus, semen, and fat, and therefore won’t touch the stuff.
The opinions published by The Match are solely those of the author, and not of the entire publication, its staff, or Collegiate School. The Match welcomes thoughtful commentary and response to our content. You can respond in the comments below, but please do so respectfully. Letters to the Editors will be published, but they are subject to revision based on content or length. Letters can be sent to [email protected].
“Bleh, it’s made out of eggs. Some people put it on everything (fat Americans).” – George Byford (‘25)
Upper School Spanish teacher Hannah Curley said, “If I can’t taste the mayo on a sandwich, I don’t want it,” and Brent Hailes (‘22) said, “[I] used to eat it by itself. I loved it so much. I don’t eat it plain anymore, but still love it with every fiber in my body.” Jonathan Yackel (‘22) said, “If I don’t know it is in the thing, I am okay with it. But once I know, I can’t eat it.”
With every single sandwich, even the ones I make myself, I always peel back the bread to check for a thin layer of white. It’s a habit, and I never know who could poison my sandwich with mayonnaise when I am not looking. Sometimes, this process can get messy, as the thin layer of white could be butter or mayonnaise. Luckily, I have come up with a top-notch, scientifically proven method to decipher between the two. Butter melts easily, but mayonnaise has a higher melting point, so chances are a warm roll that still has a layer of white on it has mayonnaise, because butter would have melted. Ham biscuits are a common culprit of the “’Is It Mayo or Butter?” check, and sometimes, if it is too tricky to tell, you just have to avoid them altogether.
I hate mayonnaise. The gloopy texture and smell are just about enough to make me want to throw up. To see how other people in the Collegiate community felt about this condiment, The Match sent out a survey to the entire Upper School. The survey asked whether people liked, tolerated, or disliked mayonnaise; if they ate it if it were the main ingredient in something; how they commonly consumed mayonnaise; and if they had a preferred brand. From the 192 responses, I found that my hatred for mayonnaise is shared by 37.7 percent of the polled Collegiate population. Maybe I should start a club for anti-mayo students, considering that nothing brings people closer than a shared hatred for something. As for the other 35.1 percent of students who love mayonnaise, and 27.2 percent of people who can tolerate it, let’s just say that I am thankful for being a senior so that I don’t have to spend any extra time with mayo consumers.
Mayonnaise contains an animal product, it is reminiscent of pus or semen, and it is remarkably slimy and jiggly. And anti-mayo campaigners do seem to agree that the condiment’s gloppiness is central to its repulsive powers. “I have consistency issues in general,” admitted Gotwals. Horwitz also denounced the condiment’s terrible viscidity, and called the emulsification process by which it achieves its peculiar density “black magic” and “Satanic-type stuff.”
But Rachel Herz, a smell scientist and author of That’s Disgusting: Unraveling the Mysteries of Repulsion, thinks it can be done. Food meanings can change dramatically, notes Herz, who believes that the consumption of insects as food will soon take off in the U.S. (“I think in another 10 years you might be having mayonnaise on your cricket sandwich,” she says.) If mayonnaise could recapture the trendiness and luxury status it once held—perhaps via a renaissance in hip restaurants or an association with glamorous people—the haters might well change their tune, Herz says. “People will be like lining up to get those little packets and squirt them into our mouths,” she said with a giggle. Advertisement Advertisement
Darwin’s observations hinted at an idea upon which revulsion scholars generally agree: Disgust is largely a cultural phenomenon. Infants don’t seem to experience it. Tiny children will tolerate unholy decay odors, and experiments show many will happily eat imitation feces (made with stinky cheese) or quaff glasses of juice in which (sterilized) grasshoppers bob like ice cubes. From centipedes to boogers, the grossout response is a learned one. Its latent purpose is often to distinguish friend from foe, and pass judgment on the habits of others. (To wit: As one informant bluntly told me, “Let’s be honest: Mayonnaise is a fat man’s food.” Or consider this quote from HoldThatMayo’s Horwitz: “If you’re looking for the real fringe, it’s the people who like Miracle Whip.”) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement
“Anytime somebody orders a corned beef sandwich on white bread with mayonnaise, somewhere in the world, a Jew dies,” goes one version of the old Milton Berle joke. The joke works on two levels: It may be that the Jew is dying out of horror at a clueless deli patron, since everyone knows corned beef goes with mustard and rye. Or it may be that the Jew is dying because she herself has chosen mayo and white, and therefore is no longer a Jew. In either reading, the mayo critique is clear—Keep your slime off my food!—a protest that critics of the sauce would make ever more emphatically as the 20th century wore on.
Of course, this ethnic-comedic anti-mayo campaign did not exactly make a lot of sense. Despite its milklike appearance, mayonnaise is kosher and in fact holds a time-honored place in Jewish cuisine; Katz’s Deli happily sells mayo-rich egg salad and Russian dressing. Jackie Mason, in an email, hypothesized that the complicated relationship between Jews and mayonnaise was probably a consequence of Jews feeling “guilty over betraying mustard.”
5 Reasons Why Mayonnaise need to be BANNED
FAQ
Why do people hate mayonnaise?
What makes mayonnaise so bad?
Why does mayonnaise taste like that?
What country likes mayonnaise the most?
Is mayonnaise a ‘disgusting’ food?
Nationalism aside, mayonnaise elicits a decidedly visceral response from its detractors. In a 2017 Popular Science article titled, “Mayonnaise is Disgusting, and Science Agrees,” Kendra Pierre-Louis explores whether mayo hate derives from humans’ evolutionary aversion to anything resembling death or decay. Seriously.
Why do people hate Mayo so much?
Of course, even adults who aren’t picky eaters can experience an aversion to mayo, so there’s clearly more at play here. Some theories posit that it has something to do with the role disgust has long played in keeping us safe and healthy — and what happens when that impulse goes slightly awry.
Do people eat mayonnaise?
“If you put a little bit of it in something, other people won’t eat it.” Nearly 20% of people have some level of distaste for mayonnaise, mainly due to its texture, according to food sensory consultant Herbert Stone. If you do fall into the latter group of those who are vehemently opposed to mayonnaise, you’re definitely not alone.
What is the world I Hate mayonnaise club?
The flagship organization, the Worldwide I Hate Mayonnaise Club, was launched in the late ’80s by Honolulu-based writer Charles Memminger, who declared his intention to combat the “evil empire of slime.” A few years later, in 1991, a dozen college students at Wesleyan University formed the Wesleyan Anti-Mayonnaise League (WAML).