Yuck

Mayonnaise, how I loathe thee!

You were the bane of my childhood, ruining an otherwise delicious bologna sandwich, dripping like bird droppings from the edges of my burger.

I was not a picky child when it came to food, but, oh, I hated you. And no one seemed to understand.

How satisfying it was to learn as I grew up that mayonnaise is about the most unhealthy thing that you can slather on food , short of lead paint. That aficionados of this death-white slime risk food poisoning if they live anywhere south of the Arctic Circle and leave their meal in the sun for more than 30 seconds or so.
How fitting that the biggest fan of mayonnaise should be the botulism germ and that it shares with Count Dracula or your average morgue resident a need for chilling and avoidance of daylight.

I have learned to tolerate small amounts of this pale paste in my food these days, mixed sparingly in pasta salads and such. But I still find myself scraping gobs of it off the bread of my fast food orders.

Now mustard – mustard is golden, the color of royalty. Mayonnaise is the color of an old man’s backside. Mustard has a pleasant, sharp taste, not a greasy, eggy, cloying, artery-plugging nasty flavor. Mustard goes with almost anything other than breakfast cereal.

Mustard comes in scores of varieties, creamy or stone ground – and blended with white wine, cranberries and so many other tasty things. The makers of mayonnaise have tried, half-heartedly, to combine their foul product with other ingredients in vain hopes of increasing their market. So far as I can tell, their effort hasn’t succeeded all that well. Why am I not surprised?