Mayonnaise Wars

I was rummaging through the fridge yesterday and I noticed that our mayonnaise jar has a use by date of 4/25/08. I know I bought that mayonnaise a year or more ago and it is still about a quarter full. But I’m not worried because it isn’t any old mayonnaise, it’s the best mayonnaise in the world: Dukes! And though I am the sole mayonnaise consumer in our household I know it won’t be any trouble to eat it all in less than 23 days because I LOVE mayonnaise. I love and eat it despite Aaron’s squeamish squeals of disgust every time I take it out of the fridge. Mayonnaise is food magic. It makes anything you put it in taste just that much better. It’s like bubba gump shrimp, you can use it to make MILLIONs of delicious dishes as the Duke’s Recipe Website can attest to (here). Salads, Cakes, casseroles, dressings, and more and more.

Aaron hates it and has even taken to quoting Ambrose Bierce’s definition: “mayonnaise: One of the sauces the French serve in place of a state religion."
Aaron has even taken to sending out inflammatory emails warning others against mayonnaise. I think he may be trying to make it an election issues. Here is an excerpt from one of his emails:
I think the common use of mayonnaise in America coincided with all of our social woes. It came to the U.S. in 1905. Undoubtedly it has sapped the strength of our religious convictions.

He’s attempting to recruit people to his cause. Thankfully, our good friend Brian Roberts, who is finishing up his PHD in English at UVA, recently announced that he may be willing to engage the subject academically and give mayonnaise the serious time and research it deserves. Here, without his permission, is his response:

Thanks, Aaron, for sending along this quote, which
really is a sort of missing link between the emergent
fields of literature & religion and literature &
foodways.

Once I finish my dissertation I may write an article,
"Sanctified Mayonnaise: A Glance at Transatlantic
Religious Literature via the Opaque Prism of
Emulsified Vegetable Oil and Egg Yolks."

For research purposes, hopefully I can get some
funding for Norma (another mayonnaise hater) to spend some time in France eating
Mayonnaise in a Cathedral, a sacrifice she just may
have to make for the good of my career.