The secrets behind the most magical of mayonnaises
When it comes to condiments there are two kinds of people in this world: people who believe mayonnaise is a magical Midas-like sauce that brings flavor and life to almost everything it touches, and a handful of vocal nay-sayers who believe mayo is a vile, viscous instrument of culinary torture straight from the bowels of Satan himself.
I love mayonnaise. It turns that stack of bland, dry bread and meat into a palatable lunch. It makes your grilled cheese extra crispy, your potato salad luscious, and your deviled eggs dangerously addictive.
But not all mayonnaise is created equal. Here in the South, Dukes is de rigueur followed closely by Hellman’s, while Heinz has recently invaded the condiment aisle with a horde of Moreauesque abominations such as Mayocue and Mayomust that we, as children of God, must reject as crimes against nature. But in the kingdom of mayonnaise, there can be only one king; only one standard-bearer all others strive to match—and its name is Kewpie.
Kewpie is a Japanese mayonnaise that comes packaged in a bottle with a drawing of a naked baby on it. If that wasn’t bizarre enough, the bottle is made from a strange, squishy material that makes a perfect squeeze bottle that is unsettlingly sensuous. But, thankfully, you’re not buying it for the packaging—you want the smooth, creamy goodness that waits inside.
As you might have guessed, Kewpie’s mayonnaise is itself a bit different from just about every other mayo on the market. American-style mayo is made from an emulsion of eggs and oil with distilled vinegar, lemon juice, spices, and salt. But unlike its American counterparts, Kewpie mayo is made from egg yolks and oil that are combined in a very special machine that makes Kewpie mayonnaise super smooth.
Normally, when you emulsify vinegar and oil, large molecules will remain, but Kewpie’s magic machine slams the molecules together, forcing the oil droplets to become absurdly small, resulting in Kewpie’s spectacularly creamy and silky texture.
Because Kewpie uses just the egg yolk instead of whole eggs, it has a much richer flavor than American-style mayo and, thanks to the rice vinegar instead of lemon juice and distilled vinegar, it imparts a tangy flavor with a softer edge and an extra bit of sweetness that somehow makes everything taste magically better.
But what is the one extra special, secret ingredient that makes Kewpie so magical? Good ole’ monosodium glutamate, otherwise known as MSG. Now before you get your apron in a bunch about MSG, let’s take a deep breath. MSG is a naturally occurring amino acid that is found in umami-rich foods like parmesan cheese, shitake mushrooms, and tomatoes. Numerous studies have clearly shown that MSG isn’t responsible for the headaches, numbness, and nausea that it’s often blamed for, and the FDA has found MSG to be generally recognized as safe (GRAS).
If you’re a fan of sushi or other Japanese foods you’ve probably consumed Kewpie mayonnaise (and a bit of MSG) for years. That creamy sauce on your sushi rolls almost certainly contains Kewpie. That delicious dipping sauce in your bento box—yep, Kewpie. You’ve also been ingesting naturally occurring glutamic acid in hundreds of other foods such as chicken, corn, ham, potatoes, and even grape juice.
In spite of the facts and because of an unfortunate cocktail of xenophobia, bigotry, and an anecdotal tale written in a 1968 letter to the editor in the New England Journal of Medicine, an aversion to MSG still exists in the US. So Kewpie’s US branch technically omits it from their made-in-America version. Technically.
When Terry Dunseith, director of sales and marketing for Q & B Foods, wrote about the US’s new formulation of Kewpie, he stated, “We use another Umami secret.” That umami “secret” is simply yeast extract. Yeast extract actually contains a lot of naturally occurring MSG, but the FDA doesn’t require labels to specify that ingredients naturally contain MSG, only that products containing naturally occurring MSG cannot claim ‘No MSG’ or ‘No added MSG’ on their packaging.
Hats off to Kewpie US for finding a way around the MSG misinformation, but taste tests show the original Japanese formulation that kept the straight MSG is hands-down the best tasting mayonnaise in the world.
If you love mayonnaise, you have to run immediately to the nearest Asian market and grab a squishy bottle of the good stuff. If you are one of the twenty percent who believe mayonnaise is gross, show me on the Kewpie bottle where they hurt you…I’m here to help.
Mike McJunkin is a native Chattanoogan who has traveled abroad extensively, trained chefs, and owned and operated restaurants. Join him on Facebook at facebook.com/SushiAndBiscuits