The Great Mayo Debate

This past summer we went on a family vacation with my entire family (my family, both of my siblings and their families and my parents) to a cabin in the Black Hills.  It was to celebrate my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary.  I volunteered to plan the meals and order the groceries.  My mom suggested that each family plan one whole day of meals instead of me doing it all. This was her way of saying that I didn’t have to take all of that on and I needed to let other people help.  I agreed, but I was still the one to order all the groceries.  Getting everyone’s recipes and making sure I ordered everything on everyone’s list was a pain. If I had forgotten anything, my siblings would not have been shy about letting me know.  Let me tell you, it is 10 times harder to order four different people’s groceries than to just plan all the meals myself and order the groceries.  Little did I know, the fact that I bought Hy-vee whipped dressing instead of Hellmann’s mayo was going to turn into The Great Mayo Debate of 2021.

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The Debate

I think the whole debate started when we were making sandwiches to bring along for lunch after one of our hikes.  My brother asked where the mayo was.  I told him in the fridge.  He still couldn’t find it.  I went to the fridge and got out the Hy-vee whipped dressing. My brother looks at me and says, “That’s not mayo. You seriously didn’t buy real mayo?”  I said, “It is mayo. This is what we use at home and it tastes the same as mayo.”  He disagreed completely. Then he got my sister in on the discussion.  She said that the whipped dressing was basically a generic Miracle Whip.  I insisted, “This is not Miracle Whip.  Miracle Whip is gross.  This tastes like mayo.”  

Everyone in my family thinks they are always right, so we needed to settle this disagreement in a blind taste test.  My brother agreed.  My sister reluctantly agreed, with the stipulation that she be able to put the mayo, whipped dressing, and Miracle Whip on something, like a cracker.  I said, “Absolutely not!  You need to eat it in its purest form.”  So, we decided that each person would have to taste the mayo, whipped dressing and Miracle Whip by itself.  

My dad, who loves to go to the grocery store, offered to go buy Hellmann’s mayo and Miracle Whip at the local grocery store near our cabin.  (He came back with a bunch of crap we didn’t need too, which is typical). My mom was completely disgusted by the whole situation because she despises mayo, whipped dressing and Miracle Whip.  She thinks they are all gross.  My 11 year old niece and my sister in law agreed to set up the blind taste test.

The Results

Well, my brother knew exactly which was which. He is a sandwich connoisseur, so this didn’t surprise me.  (If you want a fantastic sandwich recipe, check out The Greg.  He created the recipe for me, and no, it does not have mayo).  My sister and I both thought the mayo was whipped dressing and the whipped dressing was mayo.  Obviously, we both knew which one was Miracle Whip, because it’s nasty.

My brother says, “If your readers know anything about food, they’ll be shocked it was a debate at all.  Mayo is so far superior that you can’t even compare them…”  (It feels weird for someone to say “your readers”.  That probably consists of my family and friends.  Ha!)  My sister agrees with me that whipped dressing is much better than Miracle Whip, but she thinks that mayo is the best.   

I know it’s weird to dedicate an entire blog post to discussing a condiment, but obviously it was important enough to my family to have a blind taste test.  Plus, I think the banter back and forth between my siblings and me is hilarious.   I have learned one big lesson from The Great Mayo Debate. Next time we have a big family vacation, someone else can go through all the work of collecting everyone’s grocery lists and ordering the groceries. If there is a next time…

If you have a strong opinion about mayo vs. miracle whip vs. whipped dressing, let me know. Or, if you decide to try a blind taste test yourself, I would love to hear about it.