SC - Re: Talking More About Miracle Whip

[Philip & Susan Troy]

LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 9/26/00 11:28:38 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> melcnewt at netins.net writes:
> 
> > > Can we talk more about Miracle Whip?
> > >
> > > Adamantius
> >
> 
> Why not? I didn't receive any comment about the recipe I posted as a possible
> source for the Miracle Whip formula. I would love to hear comments regarding
> that post.

It looks like a perfectly fine variant on the boiled dressing, but its
formula and preparation method preclude it from being thought of as a
mayonnaise except in the very broadest sense, just as a starch-thickened
hollandaise might be very good, just not the real thing. But as I say,
this is not a quality issue or a value judgement, just a matter of classification.

It may be that this is intended to fill the same niche as MW, just as in
turn the original MW was intended to fill the niche, and market share,
of mayo, but the recipe author chose to call it mayo. And while it
contains egg yolks, and commercial mayo often contains whole eggs,
homemade classic mayo contains yolks only.

Now, my big point: IIRC, the book you quoted had a publication date of,
um, when? I seem to vaguely remember it as being in the 80's. Is there
really any reason to believe this is tracable back to the early 30's or
prior (which it would have to be to have directly inspired the creation
of MW)? There may be, but what you posted didn't seem to reflect it. 

Now, quid pro quo, I should tell you what I learned from Kraft on the
proportions of egg yolks to oil in both MW and Kraft mayo. It seems I
was wrong to negatively compare MW to mayo, and here's why: according to
Kraft, their mayo is 80 percent oil, in the proportion of 1 1/2 whole
eggs per quart. MW is 50% oil, with 1 1/2 _yolks_ per quart of oil (the
balance being represented largely by starches and water). Interestingly
enough, since the flavor and the emulsifier value are represented mostly
by the yolk, and there's theoretically 1.5 yolks in 1.5 eggs, it
probably makes little difference that one uses yolks and the other whole
eggs, except for the addition of starch and water to MW. It's as if you
could remove the starch, water, and sugar from a quart of MW and get 2/3
of a quart of mayo. It seems to take some of the steam out of Kraft's
claim that MW was created as a cost-cutting measure, unless once upon a
time their mayo was more like the real thing.

Now, I confess the reason I felt that MW was a bit of a sham was because
it compared so badly to proper, homemade mayo. It never occurred to me
that commercial mayo would suffer even worse in comparison to the
homemade article. Now I just have to get past the starches, water, and
the sugar.
    
Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com