And exactly how did moms make the potato salad in your house ? You can blame us for a lot of shit, but the enthusiasm for too much mayonnaise has long been officially "black."This is, of course, false as commenter Ulysses notes:
...in our community, the condiment ingredient of potato salad is actually Miracle Whip instead of Mayo. This is nearly universal to the degree that there are entire generations who are unaware that "mayonnaise" and Miracle Whip are in fact different. Many of us, never having tasted actual mayonnaise until adulthood, find its taste off-putting but still use the terms interchangeably.Now, a quick aside. I'm always wary of essentialism, and in fact, a large point of this blog is to make fun of the whole concept of what's black and what's white. The idea of "white music" is laughable, just as "only white people eat mayo" is laughable, just as white people fucked up the world for everyone else" is...oh, wait...
Seriously though, the whole conceit is hyperbole, and to show you how much, I have something to admit: It's true I was raised on hot sauce, but I was also raised on Hellman's--to the point that I actually hate Miracle Whip. That twang at the end is just disgusting. Indeed, on the list of things I'd change about black people, "usage of Miracle Whip" comes right after "addiction to Kool-Aid."
That's the whole point of the "white music" thing. For all my breaking on white people, I can't dance a lick or play a whit of ball. And I have a lot of company in that among my people. Well not a lot.... Certainly not as much as I would like...OK, so I'm the only brother at the party that can't do the Whop. You got me. Happy now?
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I'm feelin ya dog. I can't dance a lick either.
And I'll never eat Miracle Whip. Hellman's is what my mom used.
ButI can take you to the hoop I believe...
have a good weekend. Let's get back to the War on Monday.
When I make potato salad, I don't use mayo or miracle whip. Bacon grease, some flour, mustard, sugar, vinegar, lemon juice, water salt, pepper, and celery seed.
Of course, I serve my potato salad warm.
that's just not right...
If you're from Minnesota or Wisconsin or that area, it's not all that uncommon. Goes by the name "German Potato Salad." Served with some bratwurst and cold beer....it's a very good thing.
That all actually sounds liek a damn good combo.
Oh... that's what they called German Potato Salad. Lived in Madison for 7 years and never figured that out. I did figure out that I didn't like it, though...
German potato salad is delicious. You have to fry the bacon and crumble it up and put it in with the other stuff. Very fattening when made correctly.
My Grandma's (from Wisconsin) recipe for German Potatoe salad is this:
Boil and peel 3lbs of Red Potatoes
Fry 6 Slices of bacon. Remove the bacon from the pan.
Add 1/4 C of flour to the bacon grease and cook to a nice roux.
Add 4/3 C water + 1/3 C white vinegar + 2/3 C Sugar to the pan. Cook for a bit.
Assemble the sauce, bacon bits, potatoes, and add some chopped up raw onion. Sooooo good warm or cold!
And yes Miracle Whip is totally disgusting. I don't like Hellman's much either. I had homemade mayonnaise once and it was actually quite good. I think Julia Child is very proud of her mayonnaise recipe FWIW.
I'm not sure about warm, but that does sound good
German potato salad is delicious, and good for those of us who don't like anything in the mayo/Miracle Whip family. I think my recipe is from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, and it works.
I also do a strange potato salad with jalapeno peppers and sesame seeds. It's from Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East Vegetarian Cooking. Page 50. The recipe looks a bit exotic, and people don't necessarily take it in the first wave at a cookout. But once someone digs in and the word spreads, the stuff disappears pretty fast.
(Please start a summer cooking thread. We all could use one about now.)
Madhur Jaffrey is so frigging awesome.
As long as fried chicken's honor makes it out of this unscathed, I won't call up the sleeper cells In Defense Of The Revolution.
Yeah, fried chicken jokes were killed by Dave Chappelle.
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1456049
The Black Crusaders?
I am a white person who hates mayonnaise. All versions of it. However, I can't dance and I'm fairly terrible at basketball (well, mediocre at best), so I hope I can stay in the club, but if not I'll understand.
Yeah, Hellman's and if you couldn't afford Hellman's/it wasn't available, then whatever generic brand of Mayo is provided at your supermarket of choice.
And my mother, grandmother, aunts, uncles, etc. always use mustard for potato salad and cole slaw. It wasn't until I grew up that I found the joins of mayo-based side offerings. Although I've a question for the caucasian members of the audience: What's up with putting nuts and bits of fruit in your chicken salad and the like?
Here's a somewhat related tangent: I've younger siblings that currently attend Howard, and we were talking just the other day about the differences between cooking styles depending on location. One thing they've agreed upon, and I've heard before, is that something is up with folks from the east coast and making spaghetti. Say its either too bland or too sweet. Thoughts on this?
Cliff, I'm with you, the fruits and nuts just ruin the damn salads.
I may be crazy, but I think the fruit and nut in salad thing is relatively recent. Either that or it's a west coast thing? I don't remember it growing up in Rhode Island and Maryland. I think I first encountered it in the Sonoma Chicken Salad at Whole Foods... or at least that's where I first liked it. Does seem sort of California-y to me.
I've always known it as a Waldorf salad--chicken, apples, grapes, celery, walnuts and, of course, mayo. A quick Google search revealed it to have been first served at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York in 1893. I make a variation on it that leaves out the grapes and adds bell pepper. I also use an apple yogurt instead of mayo, which I don't really much like.
Dave -- good thing you're in texas, far, far from my grandma. Waldorf salad is her specialty. Making it without grapes might just send her into a heart attack.
This white person doesn't understand the fruit/nut thing either. I think in some cases its used as a cover for cheap ingredients. Can't speak to the spaghetti thing tho
Since no one else has confessed to the shameful truth about non-Italian New Englanders and spaghetti. Old ladies (my mom's age and up) put a cup of sugar in the tomato sauce.
Old Irish-Catholic ladies who learned to cook a long time ago, anyways. The way mom has it, when she was growing up as one of nine kids, Irish-Americans didn't have "pasta." They had spaghetti or macaroni.
There was only one type, Prince's (with the famous TV commericial where the Italian mama is yellin: Anthoneeeeee! Time-a for the spaghetti!).
If the macaroni was cold, you put mayo on it with celery and it was called a salad. If it was hot you put cheese and butter on it. If you was making "spaghettiandmeatballs," you took out a jar with "spaghetti sauce" and threw some sugar in there, because you couldn't put either mayo or butter on it and you couldn't just eat that stuff straight with out something to give you the diabeetus. If you wanted any Italian cooking fancier then spaghettiandmeatballs or macaroni and cheese, you went to the North End, where the wall murals showed how in Italy everyone drives a gondola. Which doesn't explain Mario Andretti.
I didn't realize until I was grown up that *tomato* sauce was a thing you made at home, and how it was supposed to taste, and that "spaghetti sauce" is not an actual food.
So on behalf of my people, sorry for messing with your spaghetti. We knew no better.
Lizkdc, As someone who is from an Italian-American background I forgive the New England feeble attempt at sugo/sauce. I remember having amazing pasta as a child in Boston's North End but the cooking skill must have stopped there because one summer out on Cape Cod w/ the family we wanted Italian. It was the nastiest thing I've ever tasted. Like spaghetti-o's but worse. I stick to seafood when I go out there now exclusively. Too afraid to try it again...
I'll probably be struck by lightening for revealing this, but please quit the sugar. Use carrots instead. they add sweetness but give you some body to the sauce as well. Also, you ever find your tomatoes are bitter or give you heartburn? Add milk to the sauce(just a little) will take the edge off and no one will be the wiser.
"Like spaghetti-o's but worse. I stick to seafood when I go out there now exclusively."
That's it! It think the old folks were trying to make it taste like canned spaghetti-o's.
Sticking to seafood on the Cape is STILL a good idea.
Milk? In the spaghetti sauce? Oh man, that just doesn't seem right!
"Although I've a question for the caucasian members of the audience: What's up with putting nuts and bits of fruit in your chicken salad and the like?"
I'm no fan of Waldorf Salad, or fruit in salad generally, but the chicken salad w/ (specifically) raisins or currants and nuts in it starts making sense if you use curry as the main flavoring ...
mmmm... you just sold me on curry chicken salad sandwiches for dinner this week.
Growing up, def no fruit in your salads. Celery was as far as we went. Helmans was all we had. Miracle Whip was an extra special treat(ie once in like 5 years).
I just fell out of my chair......:)
I don't know much about the benefits of Miracle Whip v. Mayonaise, but I do have a friend whose mom almost disowned him for not liking frybread. Does that count?
I think on the list of things that us white people have to forgive the world for Mayonaise ranks pretty low. On the other hand Lutefisk ranks right up there with the smallpox in the blankets.
Back when I was living in Minnesota, a friend of mine took a trip to "the old country." She was shocked that she couldn't find anyone eating Lutefisk. (I think every VFW in Minnesota has a monthly Lutefisk night)
"Of course they don't eat Lutefisk anymore," I thought. "They got refrigeration."
Funny. Reminds me of the story from when I was in Highschool about a couple of tourists who asked a friend of mine where all the "Indians" were on the reservation.
Seriously those of Scandinavian descent, but especially the Norwegians, owe the world an apology for Lutefisk. They should serve it at Gitmo.
Seriously those of Scandinavian descent, but especially the Norwegians, owe the world an apology for Lutefisk.
It's typically a holiday thing now for Scandinavians living in the US. I read somewhere that Americans eat more Lutefisk now per capita than Norwegians. In my family it's sort of a badge of honor to have eaten it, so most everyone has tried it at some point. There isn't a Norwegian spokesperson, so on behalf of my people I do apologize for it. Speaking of that, if we did have one, I vote for Sig Hansen from Deadliest Catch.
From one scandiwhoovian to another I accept your apology and offer one of my own on behalf of oyster stew. Lefsa and Meatballs all around.
We need a spokesperson though Ivar the Boneless isn't cutting it anymore....
Whenever I go with my husband to his family (of Norweigan descent) for Christmas it is interesting to see which of their traditional foods and customs survive year after year. Lutefisk apparently stopped getting served many years ago and was replaced by a dish they call "Norweigan Taco Dip". The recipe is make a Taco Dip then put the word Norweigan in front the name so it can served during a "Norweigan Christmas".
They do still make us sing Christmas carols in Norweigan. If you think white people have no musical talent you should hear 30 of them trying to sing Christmas carols in a language most of them can speak.
Sorry that should be "a language they CAN'T speak."
For those whose European ancestors came from much further south, how does does lutefisk differ from bacala and other things in the dried cod family?
"Lutefisk" would be a great name for a Minnesotan rapper.
@ M.C. It's soaked in lye ashes, and tastes a bit like soap.
I ate that stuff (well, one bite) when I was at St. Olaf's for a year. Just smelling it in the air, all ooooover the hill, should have been enough, but no! I had to actually try it. Damn. Stuff is indescribably nasty, and has left me scared to this day! It's fish jello. And not in a good way.
As they note in Drop Dead Gorgeous, "it's best with a lot of butter."
I have actually managed to avoid Lutefisk, despite growing up in rural Minnesota. (And thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that the Dutch cooking appears to have died with my grandmothers...some pretty nasty stuff.)
The other thing that one of the local VFWs did was a semi-monthly Rocky Mountain Oyster feed. I avoided those, too.
As they note in Drop Dead Gorgeous, "it's best with a lot of butter."
I'm convinced that all Norwegian food is best with lots of butter.
Having done my study abroad in the Netherlands, I understand why the Dutch are so thin.
Cool, I'm not the only one who thinks it's fish jello. So weird to have flaky jello. Really messes with your sense of appropriateness. But haven't tried it since I escaped minnesota.
@Rillion - I was once the only dark headed kid in a Norwegian Santa Lucia performance due to my best friend's dad being the pastor. I just attempted to spell the line of the carol I know for your amusement, but it would be more painful than hearing it.
Lutefisk is what Norwegian immigrants ate to remind themselves of why they left the old country in the first place, and later foisted upon younger generations as a punishment for not being able to speak proper Norwegian. Or so my Norwegian friends tell me.
But then I'm Swedish, so I stick with lefse and lingonberry jam anyway. :)
Can't say I buck the trend. Didn't really try mayonnaise until i was older. Moms uses miracle whip in everything. Tunafish, Potato Salad, sandwiches, all that.
I was raised on Hellman's too (and was super confused when I moved to the West Coast and tried to find it because it's not called Hellman's out here, it's called Best Foods) and I can't stand Miracle Whip.
Also didn't learn how to make Kool-Aid until the 10th grade, and I still suck at it (I've been told I don't use enough sugar.)
Yeah, I probably shoulda turned in my Black card along time ago, but I can actually do The Whop. So I think I'll keep it.
yeah i grew up on miracle whip but as i've gotten older, i've come to find all mayo's, whips, salad dressing rather disgusting. i'm still looking for an adequate substitute that holds the tuna together like mw/mayo does......
Nothing is ever going to hold the tuna together as well as mayo. Try not using so much. It really doesn't take a lot to get the tuna to stick together. Also, try a little bit of finely chopped onion, or whatever you like, to change the flavor.
Use less mayo and put a little red wine vinegar in ... delish.
Pick your tuna brand carefully, something that doesn't smell like cat food to start with. (I'd always hated canned tuna, but Deep Sea brand is pretty good: but usually not cheap. Cheaper than throwing something away, though). Minimal Hellman's/Best Foods, or supermarket brand if budget requires, just enough to hold it together, lots of lemon juice (real lemons), lots of green onions, mix it up but don't mash it to a pulp, and then to get ultra fancy, toast up some English muffins and serve open face with salt & fresh ground pepper on top. Maybe some hot sauce, either in the mix or on top; I like sriricha or cholula if in the mood.
I otherwise can't even be in the same room with tuna salad. I got into pitched battles with my grandmother over it as a child (she had memories of the Depression, and assumed that all kids like tuna salad. I hated it, but she couldn't bear letting it go to waste.)
As for the fruits and nuts in chicken salad: it's a California thing, and has to do with the fact that the produce is actually fresh here (in DC 20 years ago, if you didn't eat the produce you bought at Safeway within a day, you might as well toss it). It works when done well and when it hasn't been sitting around for more than a few hours, but when imitated with poor ingredients or held too long, it's just gross.
I think the mayo thing only applies to non-coastal whites. But I am an elitist.
Hah! The transplanted Midwesterner doesn't do mayo either, blech!
I meant "this" transplanted Midwesterner, not "the"
I dunno, I'm in Vermont and we use plenty of mayo. And Miracle Whip actually. Depends on what we're making.
:-/. Is Vermont coastal? Has salt intruded that far up the Connecticut river?
When I lived in VT someone killed off all the salmon in the West River (tributary to the Conecticut river) by accidentally leaving the valve open on the dam all night! (c. 1993)
So, well, probably not salt water, salmon do come home to fresh water. But not unconnected to the sea . . . .
What about Miracle Whip sandwiches? When I was growing up in Gary, Indiana and times were tough, I'd just lather a bunch of Miracle Whip on some white bread and take it for my school lunch. Maybe it's a regional thing because I'm white. Heh.
I prefer Hellman's now tho.
Is that like salad-cream sandwiches? I think they exist in the UK. Someone said the difference between Mayo and salad cream is sugar, and that that's the same difference with Miracle Whip. Not that I know...
LOL I don't know. That was all that was edible in the fridge. ;-)
But, I did like them as a kid. I don't use Miracle Whip much any longer but my son prefers it over mayo.
That sandwich sounds yummy. I used to eat a very questionable sandwich as a kid: American cheese and catsup on white bread. They were a little hard to eat beacause they would slide apart. I don't know if our taste in sandwiches is because we are white or from Indiana (West Lafayette for me).
Hey, I had a friend that ate those sandwiches too! It used to gross me out but she'd bring her cheese and catsup sandwiches to school everyday.
I totally used to eat those sandwiches, and I'm black. So delicious. I've graduated to cole slaw sandwiches, now. jeez, this sounds like stoner food.
Oh, that's horrifying. My parents - both rural Depression kids - liked to once in a while eat onion sandwiches (bread, butter, sliced onion) or bread in warm milk. Really bad, but comfortingly familiar. This is definitely the same category.
I'm sorry, "twang"?
I haven't eaten Miracle Whip for years, but what the hell kinda Miracle Whip are they selling up by you? It sounds... violent!
As a college student I was much amused when I saw Undercover Brother in the movie theater back in 2002 (hey, it wasn't that bad) and the consumption of mayonnaise was used as one of the key indicators that the titular character had become lured away into whiteness by the Denise Richards character. It was a little confusing to me when, that year or perhaps the next, there was a hit single by Trick Daddy (featuring Cee-Lo and Big Boi) called "'Dro in da Wind" where Trick rapped about eating "mayonnaise sandwiches" while growing up in extreme poverty. So is mayo symbolic of affluent (this part seems unlikely) whiteness as the movie implied, or of impoverished blackness as the song asserted
I'd like to say your post clears things up, but it actually just seems to muddy the waters some more. Was Trick Daddy talking about Miracle Whip? Is this a regional thing (he's from the south, you and, I imagine, the film's writers, are not). Obviously, knowing who to blame for mayo is one of those questions for the ages.
Blame those quasi-White Spaniards and of course the Dutch.
Both are obsessed with mayo in their cuisine!
Thats why when I go to visit my grandma in Spain I cant eat hardly half of what she wants to prepare--I cannot STAND mayo, or any eggs for that matter
I always thought Miracle Whip vs Mayo was a regional thing, like saying Soda or Pop.
My parents were Miracle Whip all the way, wasn't til college that I even tasted Mayo.
Now I like Mayo on BLTs but still prefer Miracle Whip for Tuna sandwiches. Potato salad can go either way as long as it has mustard too, people who make it without mustard are beneath contempt:-)
I am a 'Nilla (or Mayonasian), so it is important to me that a few things are noted. Number one, Mayo is delicious on sandwiches and in moderation in tuna, egg and chicken salads. Especially homemade mayo, but full-fat jar mayo is ok. Low fat mayo is disgusting.
Second, Miracle Whip is an abomination. There are many theories as to the motivations behind Max Crosset, the Kraft company and Charles Chapman, none of them reflect well on this gang of three. It is certainly not a black thing, as this disgusting goop is lapped up like manna from heaven in trailer parks all over the midwest, particularly near Chicago.
Finally, potato salad should be made without mayo and with mustard and try mixing hot sauce into the mayo for tuna salad, egg salad and chicken salad.
I'm a Best Foods mayo guy who has never knowingly tried Miracle Whip. I still believe I hate it though and refuse to eat it.
Best Foods guy here, too. You are wise to have avoided Miracle Whip. I wouldn't even give it to my dogs.
Other points:
1) The Mayo sandwich is also called the Wish sandwich, per the Blues Brother's song "Rubber Biscuit".
2) Being of Jewish descent, my enjoyment of mustard is a guilty pleasure. I try to atone by using mustard on one side of the sandwich.
3) My Nisei mother (2nd generation Japanese-American) made a dish that used mayo. Combine a can of Cream of Mushroom soup with a cup of mayo and soy sauce to taste (I think maybe a tbspoon), then use it to cover chicken and broccoli in a pan or caserole dish. Bake. Towards the end of the baking, cover with a layer of grated cheddar cheese. Serve with steamed rice. Comfort food at its finest.
4) Mother also got us to eat broccoli and asparagus by making a dip out of mayo and soy sauce.
People still do the whop? Man - I need to hit a club
I associated mayo with white people because of its near universal popularity in some European countries. Also, this a good opportunity to bring up "Arrested Development" and the origins of the mayonegg.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO1k2Y3o-iM&feature=related
It's always a good time to bring up Arrested Development.
Has anyone ever had the Japanese Kewpie mayonnaise? That stuff is fantastic, it is made with rice vinegar instead of wine vinegar or lemon juice. It is fantastic and worht trying if you are a mayo fan.
Ate it in China, and the stuff is just revolting, tastes like someone mixed ashes in or something. My preferences are for Mayonnaise with salad/potatoes, and what we call Salad Cream on chips (that's French Fries to y'all).
I don't know if it was just my family, but I always got the impression growing up that Jewish people didn't eat mayonnaise either. I was shocked the first time I saw someone dip an artichoke leaf into mayo; we had melted butter on the side--butter and chicken fat being the grease of choice in our household.
When I was traveling in Europe as a callow youth, I was more shocked that in the Netherlands folks dipped their fries in mayonnaise, even more shocked than that how good it tasted (I do believe I had till that time thought Miracle Whip was mayonnaise and had only had that in egg or tuna salad--the deli sandwiches I had were slathered in mustard). Of course, all my years in No. Cal, where foodieism is de rigeur, has lead me to home made mayonnaise aka aioli, which is wonderful, especially with a bit of tangerine juice along with the lemon, on warm asparagas. I do not, however, care much for arugula.
I still don't like bad mayonnaise, and buy the expensive kinds with low fat content for sandwiches that I bring to work. My sister won't eat it at all, and when she mentions it in speech, does so with an air of disgust under her breath.
And damn if I have ever had a cucumber sandwich, unless it's between two halves of a bagel with lox or better, smoked whitefish, red peppers, red onions, sliced tomatoes, and cream cheese for lubrication--also known as da schmire.
I love fries and mayo. If I'm in the mood for something deadly delicious, I'll head over to McDonald's for some fries and ask for McChicken sauce on the side -- basically mayo but a bit sweeter. I can feel my life shortening as I eat it, but damn it's good.
Frites met saus are delicious! The Dutch have a lot of good comfort food: uitsmijters (bread, fried egg, ham and good cheese), poffertjes (little round pancakes served with powdered sugar), herring, eel, stroopwaffels, and split pea soup. And lots of beer and jenever!
Just keep the drop (salted, hard liquorice) away from me. That is the single nastiest foodstuff I have ever had the displeasure of eating.
Here in Germany you can get your pommes (fries) "red & white", i.e. with ketchup and mayo. Still disgusting since nothing but ketchup - and once in a great while gravy - should touch french fries.
Also, popcorn may be sprinkled with sugar instead of salt. If you're lucky, they'll ask which you prefer, and it actually turns out to be a pretty tasty alternative (think Cracker Jack without the caramel). But if you have popcorn with sugar for the first time without knowing what's coming, your taste buds will revolt in shock. Kinda of like digging in to an innocuous looking bowl of Cap'n Crunch and finding out it tastes like pretzels.
And, again, mayo on fries . . . nuh-uh.
Best fries accompaniments: Old Bay seasoning and mayo (good mayo, not Miracle Whip, not disgusting low-fat mayo. if you only have it occasionally, anyway, it really doesn't matter.)
Thanks, Citizen E. You took the words out of my mouth--mayonnaise is goyische. I twit my spouse for loving it; she was raised atheist and had a Jewish grandparent, but she can't ride on that as far as I'm concerned.
Mayonnaise isn't jewish? Then how are we supposed to make whitefish salad?
Um, Kool-Aid or Wylers?
Depending on how poor you grew up, that's a valid question...
Oh, I am old now, but I could always dance, and still on occasion go out dancing, though my back and feet ache all the next day. Eat your heart out Coates.
What's with all the Hellman's worship? For me it's Duke's mayo all the way (and yes I've tasted Hellman's)!
Duke's is just Miracle Whip in drag. Same "twangy" sweetness. Trying to convince you that it's mayo is a lesser known part of the Southern Strategy.
Duke's is nothing like Miracle Whip. Have you ever really tried it?. Duke's has zero sugar/substitutes in it, it ain't sweet. I grew up in Miracle Whip country, thought it was disgusting. Moved down South and now I'm a convert to Duke's, it's probably the only decent commercial Southern Food (all the rest of the good stuff is homemade or small restaurants only).
Yep, I tried it as soon as I moved down South and threw it out the same day. It's vinegary and sweet. I don't care what the label says. It may not be as sweet as salad dressing, but it's nothing like mayo.
The idea of "white music" is laughable, just as "only white people eat mayo" is laughable, just as white people fucked up the world for everyone else" is...oh, wait...
Ha. Thanks for the giggle in the last never-ending stages of a Friday afternoon.
Re: Hellman's vs. Miracle Whip, weirdly this was always a parents vs. grandparents divide for me. My parents (health nuts) were all about the whole wheat bread, Hellman's on sandwiches, and a freakin' apple for dessert if I was lucky. Grandma's house, on the other hand, meant Wonder Bread, Miracle Whip, and Jell-O. Yahoo!
Nowadays, I almost think of them as two separate foods with separate purposes in life, sorta like delivery pizza versus the thin crust, wood-fired variation, or table syrup and the real maple deal. That way, I get my guilty, greasy pleasures and my hoity-toity elitist pleasures, too.
Homemade mac 'n cheese, Kraft mac 'n cheese.
Exactly.
As even Ulysses is forced to admit, the distinction between Hellmans (or Best Foods on the West Coast) "mayonaisse" and the various faux-mayo "salad dressings", pioneered by Miracle Whip, is one of degree at best. Real mayonaisse is what French people whip up. The rest is pasteurized gunk, produced to varying degrees of sweetness, held together at best by processed egg yolks. "Mayo" is the generic term for this stuff. My mother-in-law, who makes one of the most over-"mayoed", over-sugared, mushed-to-death soggy potato salads I've ever encountered wouldn't let Miracle Whip into her kitchen. Got to be Best Foods "Mayonnaise." Doesn't help the potato salad much...
Also TNC - I got that the whole thing was a joke. That's why I responded with one...
Yup, I know. Gotta take your threads where you can get em though...
Of course. And take heart that you're no more desperate than most of us commenters.
Also, I wasn't pissed that "mayo" was blamed on "my people" - just that you seemed to be ignoring it as a common feature of AA culture - indeed a common feature of cuisine among any demographic that routinely produces sides for barbecues, picnics, and church suppers.) In fact, since I'm "genetically" German-American, you can go ahead and blame the original product, Hellman's, on "my people." Yeah, a German guy figured out how to turn a great French condiment into a mass-produced inferior substance and sell it in bottles. Another ugly chapter in the history of Franco-Germanic relations. At least some cohort of black folks should have known better than to start buying this stuff because of the Creole connection - but mass production and mass marketing are motherfuckers.
Its not too hard to make real mayo:
http://www.thenibble.com/REVIEWS/main/condiments/mayonnaise/mayonnaise-recipe.asp
I've done it, but hardly ever.
My family is white as a fish's belly, and all we ate was Miracle Whip growing up, but I've given up on it. I buy Cain's Mayo now. It's a local New England brand.
Cain's is the best.
I'm always too paranoid to make real mayo unless I know the eggs very well. So to speak.
Cain's is a national brand, but its mostly sold in industrial quantities, we used Cain's at the truck stop I worked at in High School in Missouri.
Definitely Hellman's first, generic second, nothing third, Miracle Whip only if my life depended on it.
As for Kool Aid, I never saw the point of drinking it. When I was in college, before an exam I would put several scoops of the just-add-water powder straight into my mouth. A true recipe for success.
When I was a kid, something very close to this recipe was "potato salad" - unless we were forced to take the church pot-luck bullet:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/German-Potato-Salad/Detail.aspx?prop31=5
No "mayo" - but the best damned potato salad in my little corner of the world.
I always thought the Miracle Whip vs mayo thing was a Midwestern vs. East Coast thing ... I'm from Indiana, and we loved sliced tomatoes with Miracle Whip. Calvin Trillin has a funny line in his tribute to his father about Midwestern Jews making their chopped liver with Miracle Whip (have you read his book, Messages from my Father? It's wonderful, I think you'd like it.)
This is the kind of thing that highlights how poor a division white vs. black is for understanding the world. As always, Jew vs. gentile is where the action is. As CitizenE noted above, Jews don't eat the stuff - whatever you want to call it.
It has nothing to do with being kosher, in case you're wondering. Give me a shrimp platter wrapped in bacon, but hold the mayo/Whip.
In my Jewish house, we don't eat mayo, since we don't like it (I find it has its place, but my wife hates it), but my mom and stepdad... mayo on everything. All the time. My stepdad introduced me to Miracle Whip. He also is the only person I've ever seen who happily consumes the gel from the gefilte fish bottle, so... his taste is unusual.
Nonetheless, there are Jews that eat the stuff. But I'm a mustard guy all the way. And I'll put olive oil on anything. Of course, I am from California.
Hellman's v. Miracle Whip? I'm from SC and grew up on Duke Mayo. Miracle Whip was the "good" stuff, used strictly for sandwiches, and bought only in small jars (i.e, on par with that that fancy "sandwich spread" stuff). We didn't see it much in my house growing up, which might explain my infatuation with the tangy taste now (but not in my 'tato salad!).
TG what part of SC are you from? I'm from the upcountry and it was all about Dukes.
Hey, I'm from NC and it was all about Dukes where I grew up. It's still my choice unless I'm having tomato sandwiches. Then it's Miracle Whip all the way, baby!
I'm from the North Myrtle Beach area, and my pops is from coastal NC. Dukes was always in the fridge.
Have always hated Miracle Whip and Kool Aid. Mom (Black woman from Texas always used Hellman's) hated the MW as well. She did buy, when we could afford it, Hellman's sandwich spread which I loved especially on bologna or olive loaf sandwiches. Today I buy Best Foods/Hellman's, never, ever the disgusting MW. That said, I have a friend who makes the best cole slaw with MW and horseradish. It's the only way I can happily ingest the dreaded MW. Wait! Is this Chowhound or TNC?! A balanced diet is good for bloggers.
Is it just me, or is it hard to find the mayo that the fast food joints use on their burgers in the grocery store. Everything that I've found just doesn't taste the same.
T, you my boy and all, but you need to stop with the Miracle Whip hatein'. Or I will have to whip yo .... mayo!
This has to be a north / south thing.
I'm from Chicago and we always used Miracle Whip. When I moved to Atlanta, I managed a department. Two of the women on my staff became engaged within a month of one another, and I threw them a bridal shower at work and invited all the employees. It was salads (cheap) - tuna, chicken, potato, mixed green, etc.
Everyone was raving about how good they were, and asked for my recipes. When I told them they were all made with Miracle Whip, they were amazed. None of them had ever used anything but mayo.
Your food just won't sang, if it ain't got that tang. (doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah)
Small-town, white, working-class Wisconsin: Miracle Whip, Kool-Aid, orange juice in the cans (you had to remember to pull the cans out of the freezer the night before to thaw), homemade jello pops, and, at every damned picnic, German pahtayta (or buhtayta) salad.
The real condiment in our household, however, was butter. Our family of five kept a pound of it in the cupboard and it never went bad. If I made a PB&J sandwich, I'd butter both sides of the bread before adding the PB or J. The best was a pat of butter so thick on crescent rolls that when you bit into it, you could see the teeth marks.
And no, none of us is 400 pounds.
My lace curtain Irish grandmother rocked the butter. Butter every slice of bread in a sandwich no matter what was in it. While I'm a midwesterner like you, Michigan born and bred, my grandmother was an old school Mass/NY east coast Irish Catholic. I always thought it had something to do with the Irish heritage since I know a ton of east coast Irish raised families that buttered every slice of bread first.
Well, me mum is a McCue. . . .
Definitely not lace curtain, tho'.
Hey, that reminds me: I used to butter the bread before I spread the tuna-and-miracle whip salad on it. Then I became, you know, sophisticated, and would just lay down some Miracle Whip before spreading on the tuna salad.
Ah butter. I grew up on margarine and didn't really know what butter tasted like until I was in my late 20s. Now it's the only thing in my house, and for about a year whenever I visited my parents during the summer (fresh corn-on-the-cob from a roadside truck stand season) I brought butter with me.
I will not lie..
I was in high school before I ever tasted mayo.
LOL
I got used it, and I like making tuna, chicken, turkey salad with it...cuts down on the sweetness of these salads if done with Miracle Whip.
I hate Kool Aid though...are you gonna take away my "Black Card"?
LOL
Can I just say that I love we can have serious discourse on race, ethnicity, Civil War and Reconstruction history, Supreme Court decisions, marriage and infidelity and also a huge, tongue-in-cheek thread on (those foul demons) mayonnaise and Miracle Whip? I heart this blog.
And for the record Kool-Aid grosses me out. And I can't dance. Does this mean my black card's been revoked?
When I was growing up, a black friend of mine always had something else in his fridge to put on sandwiches. I forget what it was called, but it was mayo with some sort of relish in it. Not like tartar sauce, something else. I forget what it was called, but it added a tangy flavor to sandwiches, without the Miracle Whip aftertaste.
that's called Sandwich Spread.
Thanks.
Southern lady I know says the secret ingredient in Texas potato salad is-- gin.
I'd mostly agree with you about Black folks and mayo, EXCEPT in New Orleans.
I and my mom are both New Orleans born and bred and local Blue Plate mayo is in everything. My great-grandmother used to put a little of the stuff in her pound cake. My mom and dad use it to make potato salad and mom likes mayo with her popeyes. My grandmother makes apple and raisin salad with Blue Plate.
I've never developed a taste for mayo, but I know plenty of black folks that like a little Blue Plate (no other brands though) with all manner of food.
Noooo!!! TNC, say it ain't so! One reason I usually hate sandwiches made in stores is that they always use mayo. Blech! That goo is inedible, and probably why for most of my life I've detested potato and pasta salads. (In the last few of my thirty odd years, I've found a few that are tasty.) Mayo can be made marginally tolerable with mustard (or lemon and sugar), but I'd rather just forgo it. Miracle Whip, though, that's what makes a sandwich magic.
Unless you ditch the white goo altogether and just eat a ham and hummus sandwich. Two great tastes that taste great together, but most of the ham eating populace doesn't overlap much with the hummus eating populace so it's rare for me to find that combo in a sandwich shop as well. The H/H combo should be everywhere, along with Miracle Whip (but not on the same sandwich). These things might actually entice me to eat a sandwich I don't make at home, or give up my chinese stir fry or pad thai lunches. (For the record, I'm white. With freckles.)
I forgot to add that even though I have the Miracle Whip love, once I found out great grandma's secret sauce for her oh-so-tasty banana dessert topping was half peanut butter half miracle whip, whipped together, it just hasn't been the same. My adult self cannot reconcile those those ingredients as being a dessert food somehow.
most of the ham eating populace doesn't overlap much with the hummus eating populace
This rises to the level of sacrilege in somebody's book, somewhere. 'sgotta.
For sadness in sandwich form, there is nothing that can beat the sandwich-shaped things you find in vending machines. They are vaguely food-like, and even edible if you're hungry enough, but the perpetrators really ought to be hauled off to the Hague and tried for Crimes Against Food.
Not that my ancestors give me any room to talk about bad food ... The Scots gave the world Haggis, after all. Which kind of explains why you find so many people of Scottish ancestry here in America. When your world consists of haggis and sheep, going across the ocean to fight in someone else's war actually begins to look like a pretty good idea.
I'm white. Grew up in Texas and my family only used Miracle Whip. Tuna Salad, Potato Salad. BLTs. Turkey sandwiches. You name it Miracle Whip it.
My mom grew up in the Northeast. So I wonder if this is more regional than racial?
Dupe
it's best to use both - mayo on the meat side miracle whip on the cheese side- hellmans rules.
Interesting that no one's mentioned hillbilly ketchup...ranch dressing. Here in OK people dip everything in it. When you order take out pizza, they ask you "do you want ranch on the side"? I can't stand the stuff.
Mayo vs MH? Potato and other salads get mayo, MH for sandwiches. Except fresh tomatoes from the garden get mayo.
Growing up and still in Texas I think of miricle whip as east Texas - my moms family - and real mayo as central Texas Hill Country - my dads family. Given the number of Czechs and Germans in central Texas (and Alsatians in and around Castroville west of San Antonio) it was warm German potato salad all the way.
Now I'm in far west Texas near Big Bend National Park and the Mexican border and it's Kraft mayo with lime. Great with fish and chicken salads. Not so great on a sandwich - or as they say on the border - sangwich.
For anyone who wants to seriously expand their horizons on the potato salad front, I recommend studying this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0811833372
It's sort of the "Battle Cry of Freedom" of Potato Salad books...
White, coastal Californian here. The only thing I like mayo on is, artichokes. The idea of mixing mayo with fruit, nuts, etc, I find a crime against food.
Pretty much you can't get any more white than me. My mom never used anything but Miracle Whip, which I can no longer stand. We had what seemed to be a never ending pitcher of kool-aid in the fridge. The only foods she could cook so they tasted good were fried chicken, biscuits and black-eyed peas. I am very skeptical about the value of using food as a cultural marker in the US.
Speaking of mayo....
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6684730.ece
My parents are from the South, but I'm not. We always treated mayo as "Black," Miracle Whip as "White." And all of us think Miracle Whip is disgusting. I still won't allow Miracle Whip in my house.
My lady's family is also from the South, but they used mayo and Miracle Whip interchangeably and attached no race to either.
So there you go.
It's funny. I grew up thinking Miracle Whip was for trailer trash. Like Kool Aid or Hamburger Helper. My wife grew up thinking the same thing about Mayonaise.
Oh, so now y'all wanna hate on Hamburger Helper, too?
Y'all trippin'!! (:
Hmm, from the black bars I used to go to, there sure seemed to be a lot of brothers who couldn't dance (and had no interest in it). But we can probably find you therapy if it's still troubling you ;-)
I grew up in New Orleans. Creole African American cooks would make their own mayonnaise using oil, vinegar, eggs, and seasonings. They would put two forks together so that the tines faced inward to make a whisk and beat in the oil in a slow stream. There's no such think as too much mayonnaise when it's made that way.
Creole food is best defined by the George Carlin adage that the way to end racism is to f*ck 'til we're all the same color.
Bon Appetit!
I'm late to the party, (not the Miracle Whip party, cause that stuff's been distastefully surprising me at cookouts all my life) - but I worked in the restaurant business for ten years and left still not understanding the well done meat thing. I know it's a bit off topic, but man that's been an open loop in my head forever... somebody put me out of my medium-rarefied misery
By the way, Hellmans changed their recipe a few years back, which ruined my mother's potato salad in the most subversive way - since then I have found that Kraft Real Mayo is now the most authentically mayonnaisey of the available offerings. I learned this from a friend who's from the south tho, because we never touched anything Kraft except Mac & Cheese where I'm from.
I find it deeply ironic that Kraft created the the worst thing to ever happen to mayonnaise, and now they have also saved my mother's potato salad forever...
Ever go to Corrado's (international foods supermarket) in Clifton, NJ? They have thirteen kinds of mayonnaise, all imported from Poland.
Mayonnaise has not passed my lips in 10+ years. Only time I ever got food poisoning was because of the stuff and I'm never going there again: fever, chills, aches, puking to beat the band. Lost nine pounds in three days. Never liked mayonnaise that much to begin with, anyway. I put oil and vinegar on stuff now.
I can't dance a step, though, so I guess that means i get to keep my White Membership Card.
What, a measly 129 comments on the eternal Miracle Whip vs. Mayo debate?
I grew up thinking Miracle Whip was just a brand of mayo. I never had the real stuff until I was an adult. Now I totally understand when TNC says Miracle Whip has an unpleasant "twang". It does.
Also, as a Minnesotan I must chime in on the lutefisk posters. I've tried it. I've even met people who claim to like it. But I don't believe them.
Okay, I didn't vote yet - real mayonnaise, fine (but eat very little of it these days, a bit disgusting in its own way). Miracle Whip? Distasteful, would rather go without anything. Guess I'm an old schooler.
You guys have to try Salad Cream (Heinz is best), haven't lived 'till you do.
I feel like I should vote on this crucial issue. I hated mayo as a child, but grew to enjoy it. And I would count myself in the "Miracle Whip = abomination" crowd.
However, I had a friend from school days (same ethnicity, same socio-economic background) who was raised in a Miracle Whip clan and specificially touted the "twang."
It's a mad mad world.
Really? We used to have sugar bread sandwiches. Same concept except with sugar. Sometimes if we were jiggy and had it, we'd toast the wonderbread with some butter and sugar.
Mmmm-mmm good.
Down in Texas they eat"
Light Bread and Milk ("light" as opposed to corn bread) = tearing up white bread into a bowl of milk for breakfast, sprikled with lots of sugar, or
Rice and Milk is also a breakfast = White rice, Milk and 2-3 tablespoons of Sugar
This is what country folk eat at least
Miracle Whip is disgusting though
The Miracle/Mayo Mason-Dixon is not racial, but regional/economic. Mayo tended to be somewhat higher priced, and in places where strong regional influences in food prep were in place prior to the invention of MW (1930's?) the unsavory attachment to Mayo has persisted. In other locales (poor, urban, transient, etc) where the cost was the overriding consideration for even things such as condiments, over time, Miracle Whip has become the preferred product.
No one need turn in their respective membership cards for any taste preference accident of birth or for even having embraced the dark side willingly. The exception being lutefisk which is in fact a gift from Satan.
And by the way, EVERYONE can dance, cause "with the rhythm it takes to dance to, what we have to LIVE thru, You can dance UNDERWATER and not get WET..."
Colbert makes hipster Miracle Whip commercial: http://www.hulu.com/watch/102593/the-colbert-report-thu-oct-15-2009?c=570:749
Apparently, he can't handle Miracle Whip because he thinks we cause too much mayo-ham. So which side are you on, mayo or Miracle Whip?
It seems overboard to use terms like "disgusting", and "foul" about food that is neither, and not all that different in content. Mayo has to have 65% vegetable oil, Miracle Whip has less oil, more sugar and spices added. Not a big deal really, is it? Food snobs are just funny to me. I have friends that rave over things just because they think they have passed certain checklists for them, and sometimes they don't really know what they are eating. I have a friend that decries Miracle Whip like it's pureed possum, but she loved her mother's cooking and that's what her mother used in everything. Mine too.