Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum. Here here in the Northern Hemisphere, the weather
Speaker 1: is getting warmer and thus cookout season approaches, promising a
Speaker 1: rays of grilled foods and accompanying side dishes and salads
Speaker 1: in lots of places. Some of those salads are bound
Speaker 1: to be the type that consists of stuff bound by mayo.
Speaker 1: Maybe a pasta salad or potato salad. Maybe eat sandwiches
Speaker 1: with chicken, tuna, or egg salad. Mayonnaise is a thick
Speaker 1: sauce or dressing that's yellowish white in color and tastes
Speaker 1: creamy despite containing no dairy product. But how does that
Speaker 1: work today? Let's look at the science and history behind mayonnaise.
Speaker 1: In addition to being used as an ingredient in the
Speaker 1: aforementioned cold mixed salads, mayo can show up as a
Speaker 1: spread on sandwiches, onto itself, or as an ingredient in
Speaker 1: casseroles or in dips alone or mixed with other sauces
Speaker 1: or seasonings for veggies, French fries, and other dippable things.
Speaker 1: It has a creamy mouthfeel and a mild, slightly zippy flavor.
Speaker 1: That texture and flavor come from the fact that mayo
Speaker 1: is made from some kind of acid like vinegar or
Speaker 1: lemon juice, in an emulsion with a liquid fat like
Speaker 1: olive oil or another vegetable oil. The emulsion is bound
Speaker 1: together with something bindy that traditionally raw egg, yolk, and salt,
Speaker 1: and various spices might be added for flavor. Emulsion is
Speaker 1: the term for an even mixture of two liquids that
Speaker 1: don't generally mix, like oil and water, or in this case,
Speaker 1: oil and vinegar or lemon juice. If you put equal
Speaker 1: parts of oil and vinegar in a jar and shake
Speaker 1: them up, they'll beat up and appear to mix for
Speaker 1: a minute or so, and then they'll start separating out again.
Speaker 1: The molecules of water that the vinegar is primarily made
Speaker 1: up of do not want to bind to the molecules
Speaker 1: of fat in the oil, and the feeling is mutual.
Speaker 1: It's like being at a party or maybe a school
Speaker 1: dance where different social groups or genders are simply not mixing.
Speaker 1: But there are plenty of molecules in nature that can
Speaker 1: make oil and water play nice for our party. Metaphor
Speaker 1: that might be I don't know. The snack table for
Speaker 1: the molecules. It's more like the connective pieces in a
Speaker 1: set of tinker toys. These connective molecules are emulsifiers. They'll
Speaker 1: have one end that's a hydrophilic, meaning that it likes
Speaker 1: connecting up with water, and another that's lipophilic, meaning that
Speaker 1: it likes grabbing onto fats. The fats will still repel
Speaker 1: against other molecules of water, but since they're also attached
Speaker 1: to bits of water, they wind up dispersing themselves evenly
Speaker 1: throughout the water. These physics are also Milk contains both
Speaker 1: water and fats, but looks like a single homogeneous liquid.
Speaker 1: Egg yolks contain a fatty molecule called lesse thin that
Speaker 1: acts as an emulsifier. A bit of ground mustard seed
Speaker 1: or prepared mustard is often added to homemade mayo because
Speaker 1: mustard seeds contain a lot of mucilage, which is a
Speaker 1: gluey protein that also acts as an emulsifier. But you
Speaker 1: can't just pour vinegar, oil, and egg yolks together and
Speaker 1: wind up with mayo. You need to encourage the molecules
Speaker 1: to interact physically, so in a bowl or some kind
Speaker 1: of electric mixer, you whip together egg yolks and your
Speaker 1: acid of choice, and then continue whipping and slowly drizzle
Speaker 1: in the oil. The physical action of the whip allows
Speaker 1: the emulsifying molecules in the yolk to interact with and
Speaker 1: grab up molecules of oil and water. Sometimes while you're
Speaker 1: doing this, the mayonnaise will break, meaning it'll go lumpy
Speaker 1: and runny the same time, in precisely the way that
Speaker 1: mayo shouldn't well. When emulcifications break, the water and oils
Speaker 1: that make them up go back to hanging out on
Speaker 1: separate sides of the dance floor instead of mingling. This
Speaker 1: happens in mayo when the amount of oil in the
Speaker 1: mix overwhelms the connective molecules. But you can fix it
Speaker 1: by restoring balance. You can do that by either adding
Speaker 1: more connective molecules, more egg yolk, or by adding a
Speaker 1: bit more of your acid or just plain water for
Speaker 1: the oil to disperse itself through, and you have to
Speaker 1: whisk to combine, otherwise those oils will resolutely hang out
Speaker 1: by themselves. Chemically, emulsions are what's called colloids, which are
Speaker 1: evenly balanced mixtures composed of tiny particles suspended in another
Speaker 1: unmixable material. In other colloids, Solids, liquids, or gases can
Speaker 1: be either the particles or the medium in which they're suspended.
Speaker 1: Emulsions are liquids suspended in liquid. Emulsions are usually thick
Speaker 1: in texture and sort of satiny in appearance. They can
Speaker 1: be used in lots of different ways outside of making mayo,
Speaker 1: like by pharmacists, as a vehicle for medication, in anything
Speaker 1: that needs to stay stable, from paints to detergents to
Speaker 1: make up to explosives, and in other food products, including
Speaker 1: in similar dressings that are made without eggs or with
Speaker 1: less oil and thus generally can't be labeled mayonnaise. The
Speaker 1: US Food and Drug Administration and other governing bodies irregulate
Speaker 1: foods that are labeled and sold to make sure that
Speaker 1: consumers know what they're getting and to keep manufacturers from
Speaker 1: cutting corners by using too many fillers in their foods.
Speaker 1: In the case of mayo, its rules lay out how
Speaker 1: much acid and oil the product should contain by weight,
Speaker 1: plus what kinds of acids, oils, and egg products may
Speaker 1: be used, plus what optional flavorings and texture modifiers are allowed.
Speaker 1: This is why you might see products on a shelf
Speaker 1: next to mayonnaise labeled salad dressing or sandwich spread. Some
Speaker 1: of them lower the oil content and therefore the fat content,
Speaker 1: by swapping some out for other texture modifiers like sugar
Speaker 1: or food starch. These products, like the brand Miracle Whip,
Speaker 1: can taste a bit sweeter than mayo. For this reason,
Speaker 1: others swap out the egg for a plant based product
Speaker 1: to make a dressing suitable for vegans. The emulcifiers found
Speaker 1: in egg yolks can be derived from lots of other stuff.
Speaker 1: For example, soybeans contain a lot of less than and
Speaker 1: seaweed a lot of mucilage. A mayonnaise as we know
Speaker 1: it today developed in France sometime in the late seventeen
Speaker 1: to early eighteen hundreds, though exactly where, when and how
Speaker 1: is debated. Legend says it may have been prepared by
Speaker 1: a chef for a victory feast at Port Mahone, hence mayonnaise,
Speaker 1: but evidence is scant. Further north, in Germany and England,
Speaker 1: other creamy dressings developed around the same time, though because
Speaker 1: olive oil would have been an expensive imported product back then,
Speaker 1: but dairy was widely available, these dressings incorporated ingredients like butter, milk,
Speaker 1: or sour cream. You can see these influences in boiled
Speaker 1: dressings in the American South, which aren't boiled but rather
Speaker 1: simmered gently in a pan over boiling water. Products like
Speaker 1: these started getting manufactured and bottled around the nineteen twenties. Today,
Speaker 1: mayo is the best selling condiment in the United States,
Speaker 1: with more Americans more likely to have it on hand
Speaker 1: than even ketchup or peanut butter. As of twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: of the eight billion eggs produced every year in the States,
Speaker 1: about one percent eight million went directly to making mayo,
Speaker 1: which is impressive and brings us to one last question.
Speaker 1: Are mayo based sides and salads the culprits behind summer
Speaker 1: cookout food poisoning. The answer is maybe, but the mayo
Speaker 1: isn't actually the problem here. Mayo contains a lot of acid,
Speaker 1: which prevents bacterial growth. Commercially bottled mayo is especially safe
Speaker 1: because the egg yolks in it are pasteurized. The CDC
Speaker 1: has never reported an incidence of food borne illness associated
Speaker 1: with commercial mayo. However, the other things in these salads chicken, potatoes, eggs,
Speaker 1: fresh vegetables, are bacterial playgrounds at room temperature. If that
Speaker 1: salad is allowed to sit out between the temperatures of
Speaker 1: forty and one hundred and forty fahrenheit, otherwise known as
Speaker 1: four point four two sixty celsius, otherwise known as the
Speaker 1: danger zone. Any bacteria that have found their way into
Speaker 1: it can multiply really fast, like double their population every
Speaker 1: twenty minutes. This is why it's always a good idea
Speaker 1: to serve chilled foods in a shaded area on ice
Speaker 1: if you can. If cold foods are not kept chilled,
Speaker 1: it's safest to not eat them if they've been sitting
Speaker 1: out for more than two hours, and if the ambient
Speaker 1: temperature is above ninety degrees fahrenheit or thirty two celsius. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, I'm sorry, and b you should produce
Speaker 1: that non chilled time to just one hour. Today's episode
Speaker 1: is based on the article what is Mayonnaise on HowStuffWorks
Speaker 1: dot com and on an episode of my other podcast
Speaker 1: Saver devoted to the topic. Brain Stuff is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com, and
Speaker 1: it's produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio,
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