Mayo Is Evil: A Brief History
I hate mayonnaise. I hate it desperately. I think mayo is vile. My wife thinks it’s evil. Distinction without much difference.
Mago Barca was Carthaginian, brother to Hannibal the elephant guy. Mago really liked to crucify people. He was the type of guy who would wake up on a Wednesday and ask himself, “How many people can I crucify today?” and then get up on Thursday and say, “I can beat that.” He was energetic. They named an island port town after him.
As a benefit of the Punic Wars, the Romans had control of Hispania. Carthage was completely delended and control of the island we now call Menorca, where Mago’s namesake city sat, fell to enterprising pirates preying on the sudden uptick in commercial voyages between the Italian and newly Roman Iberian peninsulas. Rome sacked the pirates and took over. Then… It seems like everybody got a turn in charge: Vandals, Caliphate of Cordoba, Count of Barcelona, Crown of Aragon, Kingdom of Mallorca, Aragon again, Crown of Castille. Along the way it got picked over by Turks and Barbary slave raiders. In 1708, British and Dutch forces under Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI wrested control during the War of Spanish Succession. Menorca went to the Brits, along with Gibralter, in the Treaty of Utrecht.
Words change over time. Indo-European “Patre” becomes the Germanic cum English “Father.” The “p” elides to “f” as the puh sound is close to the fuh sound and the “t” isn’t that far off from “th.” You say potato, I say fathato. Somehow a Mediterranean Island port named for Mago became known as Mahon. I kinda get that particular change, but it happened whether I do or don’t. In its current inception it’s called Maó, a Catalan change over from the British name, Port Mahon, on the island of Minorca (or Menorca, depending on who is being pedantic.) It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump from Majorca, where the great poet Robert Graves taught British people they could escape to a vacation paradise and have inconsequential sex with multiple women if you tell the ladies that they’re your muses. Tourists flock to the place.
If John Byng had known about the Robert Graves sex ploy, he might have engaged.
He didn’t. Byng was the admiral tasked with defending the then-British-controlled island from the insidious French in the mid 18th century. One day he saw a French force, decided it was overwhelming, and retreated. He was court martialed and executed for his decision. Farther reaching consequences followed.
Imagine being a mildly prosperous islander with a couple of cows. It’s 1756. You speak Spanish but you’re okay with British rule; they keep the peace, more or less. The last thing you’re worried about is Armond de Vignerot du Plessis, duc de Richelieu (not the one that immediately spring to mind, but the great or great-great nephew of that guy.) But Armond de Vignerot du Plessis, duc de Richelieu, lands avec a beaucoup of soldiers, takes over your island, and for some reason kills your cows.
“Why did you turn my back yard into a slaughter house?” you might ask the soldiers.
“We didn’t,” they’d reply. “We turned it into an abattoir. That’s Gallic. More sophisticated than your slaughter thing.”
“Well, I want to lodge a complaint.”
“I get it,” says the soldier, dripping in a mixture of English and bovine blood. “But there are a lot of cows on this island and I’m pressed for time. We can talk about this at tonight’s salon.”
“Why are you killing cows at all? This doesn’t make sense.”
“I’ve got my orders.”
“I’m going to report this to Byng!”
“Good luck with that.”
If you’re looking for an explanation for why cows were killed, I don’t have one. But the French did it, and they went about their duties vigorously. A mandated four day work week doesn’t mean there’s less work to be done. It means there’s more pressure.
If your sympathy is with the suddenly cowless burgeoning middle class islander, you haven’t looked far enough ahead. Armond de Vignerot du Plessis, duc de Richelieu (not the one that immediately springs to mind, but the great or great-great nephew of that guy,) ordered a feast in celebration of his conquest of Menorca at its capital city, Port of Mahon. Your sympathy should be with the chef.
That poor man was probably excited initially. A celebration dinner is a chef’s bread and butter, so to speak. There were all manner of birds to be stuffed into pies. He must have been so happy. But you see the looming issue.
He was French and he was a chef. Consider his mindset.
Pork Chops: That gets cream sauce.
Lamb: Cream sauce.
Asparagus: Cream sauce.
It’s cream sauce all the way down.
I assume he had a staff, but I also assume he had access to a few soldiers willing to trade gossip for a nip of wine or a drumstick on the sly. I’m sure that a few guards attending to the needs of Armond de Vignerot du Plessis, duc de Richelieu (not the one that immediately springs to mind, but the great or great-great nephew of that guy) hung around the kitchen. He probably said something like “I need some dairy,” and the soldiers who killed all those cows for some reason start looking at the ground or into the sky and mumbling about why they can’t help with dairy because the guys tasked with burning the bodies of dead Englishmen are really short handed and maybe they should help out with pyre building.
I hate mayonnaise. I hate it desperately. I think it’s vile. My wife thinks it’s evil, a distinction without much difference as we both agree on the letters if not the order. Despite myself, I have to credit the unknown chef of Armond de Vignerot du Plessis, duc de Richelieu (not the one that immediately springs to mind but the great or great-great nephew of that guy.) He pulled off one of the greatest improvisations in culinary history.
With no cream to be had he threw together eggs, oil, some lemon, probably a bit of salt and pepper, and made Armond de Vignerot du Plessis, duc de Richelieu (not the one that immediately springs to mind, but the great or great-great nephew of that guy,) happy.
My tastes aside, the stuff is ubiquitous. I don’t order a turkey and Swiss on wheat. I order a turkey and Swiss on wheat with no mayo because the presence of that demon condiment is assumed. Dammit.
So that’s mayonnaise. It takes its name from a pirate booty swapping base of a port city named for a serial crucifier and was first served as wafts of burning British bodies permeated the air. Enjoy your sandwich.
[A version of this article appeared in Ordinary Times on October 4, 2021]