Mayonnaise

Mayonnaise, often called mayo, is a thick, creamy sauce known for its rich, tangy flavor. It’s a staple on sandwiches, hamburgers, bound salads, and French fries, and serves as the foundation for sauces like tartar sauce, fry sauce, remoulade, salsa golf, ranch dressing, and rouille.

The sauce is an emulsion of oil, egg yolk, and an acid—typically vinegar or lemon juice—with many variations that add extra flavorings. Its color ranges from near-white to pale yellow, and its texture can be as light as cream or as thick as a gel. Eggless commercial versions are available for those who avoid eggs.

The history of mayonnaise is tied to French cuisine, with the name first appearing in 1806. Theories about its origins are numerous and conflicting, but most agree it came from Mahón, a port city on the Spanish island of Menorca, during the French occupation in the Seven Years’ War.

History

Some authors dismiss other theories as retrospective inventions meant to credit southwestern France, when the sauce likely originated in Menorca. One idea links mayonnaise to ancient remoulade; another suggests it derived from aioli. The technique of emulsifying egg yolk was long known to pharmacists for making ointments, and some argue mayonnaise likely started in Spain because it requires olive oil, a product mainly produced and consumed there at the time—similar to a theory about French fries.

In 1750, Valencian friar Francesc Roger Gomila published a recipe for a sauce like mayonnaise in Art de la Cuina, calling it aioli bo. He didn’t detail the recipe, implying it was common knowledge on the island, but its uses and pairings don’t fit a typical aioli. Earlier emulsified sauces, often with garlic, appear in Spanish cookbooks as far back as the 14th-century Llibre de Sent Soví, where it’s called all-i-oli (Catalan for “garlic and oil”). This sauce had spread across the Crown of Aragon, and Juan de Altamiras included a recipe in his 1745 book Nuevo Arte de Cocinar.

On April 18, 1756, the Duke of Richelieu invaded Menorca and captured the port of Mahón. One theory holds that the aioli bo sauce was adopted by the duke’s cook, who later made it famous in the French court as mahonnaise. Legends vary on how the duke first tasted it—some say he asked an innkeeper in Mahón for a meal during the siege, others claim he invented it himself as a quick garnish. In 1808, Grimod de La Reynière described a bayonnaise sauce, a sort of aspic used for cold chicken and fish salads.

In 1806, André Viard’s Le Cuisinier Impérial transformed a remoulade recipe by replacing roux with egg yolk; in another version, an Indian remoulade without mustard, he noted that adding oil slowly helped the binding. This is the first modern mention of a stable cold emulsified sauce. By 1815, Antonin Carême referred to a cold magnonaise emulsified with egg yolk, and the word “mayonnaise” appeared in English that same year. Auguste Escoffier later classified mayonnaise as a French mother sauce for cold sauces.

Etymology

The name’s etymology is debated. A common theory ties it to Mahón (Maó in Catalan), named after founder Mago Barca, honoring the Duke of Richelieu’s 1756 victory over the British—though the name mahonnaise appears only decades later. Some say it was originally salsa mahonesa in Spanish, but that spelling is also later. Grimod de La Reynière rejected both mayonnaise (calling it “not French”) and mahonnaise (since Mahón “is not known for good food”), preferring bayonnaise after Bayonne, which he said had innovative gourmands and excellent hams.

This form might have come from a spelling deformation of sauce à la Bayonnaise, and no written record of sauce à la mayonnaise exists before the early 1800s, long after Mahón’s capture. Carême suggested the word derived from magnonaise (from magner or manier), while Prosper Montagné proposed moyeunaise (from moyeu, Old French for “egg yolk”). Others link it to the old verb mailler, meaning “to beat.” Joseph Favre claimed mayonnaise was an alteration of magnonnaise, from the town of Magnon in Lot-et-Garonne, where a cook supposedly popularized it in southern France.