Avoiding mayo overseas
 

Fellow mayo haters, other than the obvious (e.g. "hold the mayo on my sandwich"), what are some of the dishes you avoid? I am US based so I know the drill here...no cole slaw, no potato/egg/chicken salad, etc. However, I'm curious if there are any other global dishes to be on the lookout to specifically avoid. Example: street corn in Mexico; some vendors use crema but many use mayo.

All due respect is given to those of you who love mayo but I'm just not one of them.

Whats your beef with mayo? I don’t use it as a condiment but no mayo would mean no tuna salad, no deviled eggs. I do think it’s used too liberally, especially in the south. A little goes a long way. BTW, I make my own at home: egg, olive oil, salt, dry mustard and lemon juice. The flavor differs from what you buy in a jar. If your issue is texture, I can’t help you.

I know some U.S. people who hate the stuff for whatever reason..Making my own (albeit aioli). What surprises me is the huge following it has in latin America. Was in a Paraguayan supermarket in the '90s and was astounded by the variety and sizes of mayo available: Hellman's in institutional size. Would take me a couple of decades to finish the jars they had in stock.

I use it when I grill fish. It holds in the juices and gives the dill something to adhere to. It disappears in the cooking process.

I suggest you never visit Chile.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d3732cebcf.jpg
Typical hot dog

Not just overseas, but in the U.S. too.

Despise it. Hate it.

Sometimes I will say (despite the dietary implausibility) that I am allergic.

At new hamburger places I always have to interrogate the counter people to find out if they put any mayo-based stuff on routinely.

And one of the trends I hate, when I'm lucky enough to be in First Class, is the trend for sandwiches to come pre-glopped with mayo-based ickiness.

It's automatic (part of the culture) on French fries in Belgium.

In the USA, mayo can be mixed with mashed/ground/whipped avocado to make a spread for sandwiches, so any sandwich that is described as having avocado should be avoided unless one can cross examine the server to make sure that there will be *slices* of avocado.

That’s frightening.

Just about every sandwich, burger or salad I encountered in Argentina included mayonnaise. I had no problem with it but one of my traveling companions learned how to say "Sin mayonesa" with every food order. Watch the packets labelled salsa golf. They contain ketchup and mayo pre-mixed together.

I avoid most mayo since it has no real taste and is globbed on sandwiches with some bites being almost all bread and mayo. Your recipe sounds better than most jars in the grocery store/food service.

same. A whole bunch of extra calories for no real gain. Maybe if I was bulking I’d go for it?

What my recipe is missing is the loads of sugar and chemicals found in jars. I think the mustard and lemon give it a different flavor as well.

Mayonnaise is routinely overused in sub shops. I feel like a 6” Subway sandwich has about 1/4 cup of the stuff. And why would anyone add it to a tuna salad or chicken salad sandwich that already has enough in the mix?

I think I object more to mayo abuse and overuse than anything. That and cheese. Does there have to be cheese on or in everything?

You are absolutely right. It's the insane desire for more sugar, more chemicals and more carbs with every dish, and the equally powerful desire the flavor of the primary ingredients (often because they are of low quality).

Pizza in Eastern Europe. When working in Sofia or Belgrade I'd sometimes pick up a carry-out slice on the way back to my hotel and found mayonnaise was often one of the toppings.

Russians just love tons of mayo on many of their salads. I find it absolutely disgusting. I lived in Russia for 3 years and ate very few Russian salads. They do make some very nice mushroom soup, though (no mayo).

Because you are only eating commercial mayo. The "recipe" is pretty much a traditional mayo recipe.

Yes. So the cheese doesn't stand alone. If "American Cheese" is the only option, I hold the cheese, in which case, it will stand alone.

Great thread - let's all work together to save ourselves from this vile condiment. :tu:

Real mayo doesn't have sugar. Just looked at a jar of Hellman's and while sugar is an ingredient it's way down on the ingredient list and rounded down to 0g per Tbsp (15 ml). What does have sugar are viler-than-commercial-mayo imitations such as Kraft Miracle Whip (apparently was first offered as a cheap, Depression-era substitute) and it's probably not even sugar but more HFCS at that). 1g per same TBSP/15ml measure. Less oil too.

You need to try Japanese Kewpie Mayo. The dash of MSG makes all the difference!

That is probably the one mayo that I really dislike. It's sickly heavy. Fine on a California roll, but I wouldn't to use it on sandwiches.

When I moved to the UK I was shocked that so many pizza places would put a tub of mayo in the pizza box for you to slather on your pizza or dip into it. Yuck.

Yes, yes there does. Cheese is heaven...I have never met a cheese that I didn't like although I am sure there are some out there.
Mayo is heaven too.
You people don't know how to eat. :p

Try living with lactose intolerance. I have lactase pills that work *some* of the time. That’s fine if I’m at home and I want to have a slice of pizza. Eating pizza out is like playing Russian roulette. BTW, I don’t have a problem with aged cheese. The lactose turns into something else after 6 to 9 months. And most pizza cheese doesn’t give me a problem. And not because it’s aged. I think it’s because it’s not all really dairy cheese.

I’s the same way in Tennessee but with ranch dressing instead.

Hate mayo -- definitely a challenge to avoid in Europe. Especially on pre-packaged sandwiches. Whenever I'm at a train station or airport, I'm always looking for a nice basic chicken sandwich and then look at the options closely and there is a pound of mayo on the sandwiches.

Pret in particular is bad about this, the bread and sandwich always looks delicious but they just can't help themselves with mayo on everything.

Mayo does not have dairy.
Yes, aged cheese...the longer, the better----most parmesans or aged cheddar.. But also most lactose intolerant people can have goat cheese or sheep's milk cheese. Goat cheese is really good on pizza.

My stomach is churning even as I type this, but I have encountered "salsa golf" also called "salsa rosa" and "salsa rosada." All appear to be the same vile concoction.

I'll never forget the girl at the LHR T5 Pret looking at me like I had two heads because I asked if there were any sandwiches without mayo. After mentally processing what must have been a baffling request to her, she found me one with yogurt.

That Chilean hot dog - is that a standard preparation or would it be ordered/requested the way?

Firehouse Subs is probably worse than Subway with adding mayonnaise to a sandwich. I prefer mustard on a sandwich. Maybe that's why I don't like the sugar in mayo.

OK, so it isn't just me. Recently had my first Firehouse sub and after my first bite, was on the verge of throwing up. It was like "do you want a sub with your mayo?" Except for tuna, egg or pasta salad, I don't put on mayo and even then, very sparingly. I never put mayo on anything else. Firehouse gave me what I normally consume in three/four years all in one shot.

Deports Authority - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Video Clip) | Comedy Central

This is an old Daily Show clip. About 4 minutes in (brought up twice).

You can get the hot dog w/o the mayo. But this is a typical prep - "italiano" (the 3 colors of the Italian flag).

I'm not anti-mayo but I don't want it on everything. My brother however can't stand the taste or texture of mayo (or anything like it) so I try and pay attention so I can warn him what to avoid. One thing we've noticed is that the Japanese places around here LOVE to use mayo in everything - on sushi, in hibachi, as a salad dressing, etc. I haven't encountered this much mayo use in Japanese places elsewhere even in the US, so I'm assuming this is a southern thing. Am I right?

I would suggest you use "no mayo" instead of "hold the mayo, please" - because "hold the mayo" may not be obvious to a non-native English speaker. I know what it means, but it makes literally no sense, unless you know the phrase already.

- DanishFlyer

Just watch out when ordering a tuna sub at Firehouse. They will put mustard on it unless you ask for none.

East Asia is the reason I can't eat mayonnaise anymore. Japan and Kewpie are bedfellows, China throws it on grapes, and Korea, always in last place, throws it in kimbap. Bakeries over in those napes of the woods also add it to bread filled with yakisoba, corn kernels, and the most dolorous, pork floss.

Thanks for the warning. I'll pay attention when I'm lucky enough to travel over there.

On grapes? That's not only disgusting, it's utterly bizarre.

I'm not sure. I have a vague memory of someone in my family making a grape salad that involved mayo, or possibly sour cream.

Grapes in chicken salad with mayonnaise is a common variation of chicken salad. Corn on the cob with mayonnaise and Mexican street corn kernels with mayonnaise is found from Mexico to the southwest and west USA.

That sounds really awful. I don't like fruit in non-fruit salads (with the obvious exception of tomato).

Amsterdam last month I received bread at an Argentinian steakhouse with what I thought was whipped butter. It wasn't, it was mayonnaise so I took a big bite of bread with mayo. Blech.

Hmmm. I wonder what all the people in mayo loving countries think of Miracle Whip, the poor cousin to real mayonnaise. Miracle Whip is to mayonnaise as margarine (oleo) is to butter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Whip

I always thought Miracle Whip was just mayonnaise with lots of sugar added. That's what I remember it tasting like. Yuck.