Extraterrestrial Grade Kewpie Mayo Corn Dish!

Sena made a Korean Corn Bake with Kewpie Mayo. There’s a spice in it that makes it special. On the label, it just says “spice.” One web article says the secret ingredient is monosodium glutamate (MSG). The author goes on at length to assure that MSG is safe. I guess it has gotten a bad rap. The author says you have to get the Kewpie Mayo made for the Japanese market to get it with MSG and went on to say that, in the U.S., yeast extract is substituted for MSG.

The Kewpie Mayo we have has extraterrestrial grade MSG in it.

That reminds me of a quote from the movie Beetlejuice. Lydia says, while eating Cantonese food:

“I plan to have a stroke from the amount of MSG that’s in this food.”

That’s not going to happen. Sena made this in about 15 minutes. She doesn’t need to measure anything. She just throws stuff together, a pinch of this, a sufficiency of that, etc.

She used peppers and onions, and butter, added the corn, condensed milk, and a generous squirt of Kewpie mayo. She loaded it with shredded cheese and popped it in the broiler on low.

It was great on crackers or just by itself. It did open up a wormhole portal in our kitchen and Bigfoot rushed in and tried to trade some beef jerky for the kewpie corn dish. He was too late.

We ate it all.

Mayo Taste Test!

Big day of mayo taste testing yesterday. We broke out the Kewpie Mayo, Duke’s Mayo, and Miracle Whip. Actually, we got the two mayonnaise brands out for dishes Sena had planned. We got the Miracle Whip out just to compare the taste of all three.

I thought the Miracle Whip was tangy. Sena actually thought it was pretty good too. Miracle Whip was sweeter than the other two (but not cloying!). Duke’s Mayo was definitely strong on the egg yolk flavor. I also thought it was salty. Kewpie Mayo was very different from the other two but it was difficult to tell just how, exactly.

We tried out the Duke’s Mayo on egg salad sandwiches. Sena’s verdict on Duke’s Mayo is that she doesn’t really like it and prefers Hellmann’s. I’m indifferent to it. I think it makes for a pretty good egg salad sandwich, but I prefer Miracle Whip. And Sena is becoming a little more partial to Miracle Whip.

Mayo Wars

Okay, so it’s Mayo Wars again at our house evidently. Remember that challenge of Mayonnaise vs Miracle Whip Sena and I had a while ago? Well, now Sena is planning to make a Korean cheddar corn dish. It’s supposed to be made with Japanese mayo, which I gather refers to a product called Kewpie Mayonnaise.

She also ordered a couple of other mayo products: Blue Plate Mayonnaise and Duke’s Mayonnaise. She plans to use them in egg salad and a fish sauce.

All of them use mainly or only egg yolk instead of both the white and the yolk as other mayo makers do. Hmmm. One reviewer says that this avoids the “cloying sweetness” of Miracle Whip.

The nerve!

The other annoying thing is that the Kewpie Mayo took its name from the Kewpie doll. Let’s be clear, the word “Kewpie” is not Japanese. It was coined by an American illustrator, Rose O’Neill. The name comes from “cupid” the name for the rosy-cheeked babies and the Greek god Eros. The Romans called him Cupid. A Japanese businessman shrewdly applied the name to the mayo his company made because kewpieness was getting a lot of attention in America. Kewpie dolls are collectible.

“Cloying sweetness of Miracle Whip” for crying out loud!