Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
How Millennials Killed Mayonnaise
How Millennials Killed Mayonnaise
The inexorable rise of identity condiments has led to hard times for the most American of foodstuffs. And that’s a shame.
by SANDY HINGSTON· 8/11/2018, 8:59 p.m.
I write this in the dead of summer, always a bittersweet season — why is it we got summers off from school for all those years but don’t get summers off from work? — but doubly depressing these days, when I find myself suffering from picnic panic. The hot, languid weather brings with it a series of outdoor family events for which, as a tribal elder, I’m charged with providing provisions. Lately, though, I’ve had my feet cut out from under me. For years — nay, decades — my contributions to the Hingston clan’s Memorial Day and Fourth of July and Labor Day gatherings were no-brainers: I made what my mother once made. She was such a good cook that when she died prematurely, my husband and I typed up and photocopied (quaint, I know) a booklet of her recipes, tried-and-true favorites on which she built her formidable culinary reputation. When the holidays rolled around, I simply re-created one of her delicious dishes and toted it along.
Along about a decade ago, though, I began to notice I was toting home as much of my offerings as I’d concocted. My contributions were being overlooked — or shunned. Why should this be? Mom’s extraordinary potato salad — fragrant with dill, spiced by celery seed — went untouched on the picnic table. So did her macaroni salad, and her chicken salad, and her deviled eggs. … When I carted home a good three pounds of painstakingly prepared Waldorf salad — all that peeling and coring and slicing! — I was forced to face facts: The family’s tastes had changed. Or, rather, our family had changed. Oldsters were dying off, and the young ’uns taking our places in the paper-plate line were different somehow.
I racked my brain for the source of this generational disconnect. And then, one holiday weekend, while surveying the condiments set out at a family burger bash, I found it. On offer were four different kinds of mustard, three ketchups (one made from, I kid you not, bananas), seven sorts of salsa, kimchi, wasabi, relishes of every ilk and hue …
What was missing, though, was the common foundation of all Mom’s picnic foods: mayonnaise. While I wasn’t watching, mayo’s day had come and gone. It’s too basic for contemporary tastes — pale and insipid and not nearly exotic enough for our era of globalization. Good ol’ mayo has become the Taylor Swift of condiments.
....
The inexorable rise of identity condiments has led to hard times for the most American of foodstuffs. And that’s a shame.
by SANDY HINGSTON· 8/11/2018, 8:59 p.m.
I write this in the dead of summer, always a bittersweet season — why is it we got summers off from school for all those years but don’t get summers off from work? — but doubly depressing these days, when I find myself suffering from picnic panic. The hot, languid weather brings with it a series of outdoor family events for which, as a tribal elder, I’m charged with providing provisions. Lately, though, I’ve had my feet cut out from under me. For years — nay, decades — my contributions to the Hingston clan’s Memorial Day and Fourth of July and Labor Day gatherings were no-brainers: I made what my mother once made. She was such a good cook that when she died prematurely, my husband and I typed up and photocopied (quaint, I know) a booklet of her recipes, tried-and-true favorites on which she built her formidable culinary reputation. When the holidays rolled around, I simply re-created one of her delicious dishes and toted it along.
Along about a decade ago, though, I began to notice I was toting home as much of my offerings as I’d concocted. My contributions were being overlooked — or shunned. Why should this be? Mom’s extraordinary potato salad — fragrant with dill, spiced by celery seed — went untouched on the picnic table. So did her macaroni salad, and her chicken salad, and her deviled eggs. … When I carted home a good three pounds of painstakingly prepared Waldorf salad — all that peeling and coring and slicing! — I was forced to face facts: The family’s tastes had changed. Or, rather, our family had changed. Oldsters were dying off, and the young ’uns taking our places in the paper-plate line were different somehow.
I racked my brain for the source of this generational disconnect. And then, one holiday weekend, while surveying the condiments set out at a family burger bash, I found it. On offer were four different kinds of mustard, three ketchups (one made from, I kid you not, bananas), seven sorts of salsa, kimchi, wasabi, relishes of every ilk and hue …
What was missing, though, was the common foundation of all Mom’s picnic foods: mayonnaise. While I wasn’t watching, mayo’s day had come and gone. It’s too basic for contemporary tastes — pale and insipid and not nearly exotic enough for our era of globalization. Good ol’ mayo has become the Taylor Swift of condiments.
....
44 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
1. After quite the killing spree in 2016, 2017 was off to a quiet start. But by the end of February, millennials were back at it again, and this time, marmalade was goin' down.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/michelleregna/things-millennials-killed-in-2017?utm_term=.lg71VemvN#.grNxlPGgm
https://www.buzzfeed.com/michelleregna/things-millennials-killed-in-2017?utm_term=.lg71VemvN#.grNxlPGgm
I love me some ranch....shit, that just proves that officers can't be trusted...
. Whoops
has a wonderfully pleasant tang to it.
Sheesh! Something else people have chosen to blame millenials for... 
