There has been renewed attention to my now 3 year old post “What Happened to Miracle Whip?” Apparently, it’s the most read post in the last week or so, judging from my Top Posts list. I’m not sure why, so I’ve reopened the comments section, which I closed a while back because they all were beginning to sound about the same.
What’s new?
Sena bought a couple of new brands of mayo, or new to us anyway. They were Bama Mayonnaise and McCormick Mayonesa. Sena didn’t much care for Bama Mayonnaise. And that is just her personal opinion; don’t send any nasty letters, please!
On the other hand, we both really liked McCormick Mayonesa. It has lime and sugar in it. It reminds me of Miracle Whip, which as you know, is my favorite (no offense, out there!). Sena really prefers Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise. But I still love her.
Here’s the thing about my sensitivity about nasty comments. I want to emphasize here that we are not rating any of these mayos we’ve tried. OK, I’ve written a few blog posts about them, but you will not find any numerical ratings about them (I’m pretty sure, though I haven’t checked). I found a web site article by Sean of the South. The title is “Mayo Wars.” He rated the mayos. Big mistake. He got a lot of flak. There are a lot of folks out there who worship their favorite mayos.
Sean tried 73 brands of mayonnaise. I didn’t know there was anywhere near that many brands of mayo! I gather Sean’s ratings made some people stride briskly to their refrigerators, pack their favorite brands lovingly, and ship them to Sean with letters expressing deep devotion to their mayos while advising Sean to watch his step or suffer the consequences.
Anyway, we’re not rating mayos. In fact, we believe that all mayos are created equal. Only, we think you should give the McCormick Mayonesa a try. We think it’s pretty good in potato salad and as a sauce for fish.
Sena bought a new brand of Braunschweiger and a new mayo and we tried them yesterday. The new mayo was Blue Plate Mayo. Frick’s Braunschweiger was the new lunchmeat.
So far, we’ve tried Field’s, Jones Dairy Farm, and Frick’s Braunschweiger. We’ve sampled Kewpie’s, Duke’s, and Blue Plate mayo.
We both thought Blue Plate Mayo was not better than Miracle Whip and the Frick’s Braunschweiger was OK but a little short of earthshaking. Frick’s is a family business in Missouri, and their website looks similar to Jones Dairy Farm (which also makes Braunschweiger). They’re both solid family businesses.
Blue Plate Mayo (“born in New Orleans”) has been around since 1927 and make a decent mayo. We just like Miracle Whip better.
In fact, of all the mayos we’ve tried, we both like Miracle Whip the best although Sena, most of the time prefers Hellmann’s Mayo. But that’s just her.
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.
Sena bought two items at the grocery store that brought back memories: Braunschweiger and Miracle Whip.
You may recall the Miracle Whip vs Mayonnaise challenge blog posts last August-September. Miracle Whip took a beating and it’s partly because I suspect the makers changed the recipe for it.
I can’t change that. On the other hand, I used to make sandwiches using slices of plain white bread and Braunschweiger. There are dozens of brands of Braunschweiger. I’ve never heard of Field, but it hardly matters. I think they’re all pretty much the same.
On the other hand, try telling that to the food science experts at Iowa State University. We found a YouTube video of a guy explaining what they look for when judging Braunschweiger. He went on about how it has to be a certain color (reddish is better), it can’t be spreadable, and it has to be flown in from a distant galaxy and so on.
But we also found a couple of videos that show the spread of opinion on what people think of the taste of Braunschweiger. One of them showed a guy in Texas who tried it for the first time. He toasted the bread (something I’ve never done), sliced the meat, placed it between the bread slices without any kind of condiment—took a while to roll it around his mouth and finally praised it highly.
That contrasted with a video of a father and son who made a hilarious and overdone spectacle of themselves gagging their way through a taste test.
There are a lot of recipes out there using Braunschweiger. Many of them look really tasty. Nostalgia is the word for my version. I don’t do anything fancy with it. I slap Miracle Whip on the bread, slap Braunschweiger slices on them and have lunch.
I ate a lot of lunch meat sandwiches when I was growing up. I didn’t know about nitrates and nitrites back then and didn’t worry about carcinogens from them. I still don’t. If you want the lowdown on nitrates and nitrites in your diet and the relationship to diseases like cancer as well as their benefits, you can read a very thorough and recent review of it (Karwowska M, Kononiuk A. Nitrates/Nitrites in Food-Risk for Nitrosative Stress and Benefits. Antioxidants (Basel). 2020 Mar 16;9(3):241. doi: 10.3390/antiox9030241. PMID: 32188080; PMCID: PMC7139399.). There is no slam dunk decision on whether it’s totally evil or not—note the word “benefits” in the title.
I recommend you not watch any overly dramatic YouTubes or read any scary science articles about it. Keep it simple. Just enjoy your Braunschweiger and Miracle Whip sandwich. You can also enjoy it with mayonnaise, if you’re so inclined. Sena and I did a taste test and this time the Miracle Whip tasted just like it did when I was a kid! Sena actually liked Braunschweiger. She ruined it with mayo, but that’s just her.
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!
Okay, the update on the Mayo vs Miracle Whip thing is not going as planned so far. A couple of days ago, we had tuna fish sandwiches using Miracle Whip.
This was not the Miracle Whip I knew growing up. Neither of us could appreciate much of a taste at all. It’s a crisis.
Even the label on the jar looks strange. Since when does Kraft call it “Creamy Mayo & Tangy Dressing?” Why do they need to use the word “Mayo?” And it didn’t have the tangy flavor I remember.
This is all because of aliens. I’m pretty sure this is a violation of the Intergalactic Federation for Preservation of Tanginess Standards (IFFPOTS). Look it up.
I never made Miracle Whip sandwiches with just Miracle Whip on two slices of bread. I also had a slice of lunch meat on them. In fact, I ate one Miracle Whip nitrate-rich lunch meat sandwich a day for lunch for years. Its’ a good thing scientists discovered that nitrates aren’t bad for you.
But the point is the Miracle Whip tasted tangy back in those days. What happened?
Maybe it’s because my taste buds are older. More likely it’s because aliens kidnapped me and altered my taste buds. Or maybe they altered the Miracle Whip itself.
We’re not done yet. There are other recipes to try.
Remember that Mayo vs Miracle Whip controversy in a recent post? Sena got Miracle Whip today. Now we’ll see. Look for an update.
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