The Debate Where There Is No Possibility Of Compromise: Mayonnaise vs. Miracle Whip

We live in a world of the “Us” vs. the “Them”. There are Republicans and Democrats, Catholics and Protestants, Chevy people and Ford people (or these days Toyota people vs. Honda people). Each of those societal schisms can reflexively put you in the “Us” camp or the “Them” camp when one of the choices is mentioned. But there is another of these societal wedges that may be the most polarizing of all – are you a mayonnaise person or a fan of that other product known as Miracle Whip?

The origin of mayonnaise is murky. Many believe that it originated in Mahon, a city in Spain during a period of French occupation in the time of the Seven Years War (1756-63). The first recorded instance of a stable, cold emulsified sauce from egg yolks and oil with a bit of vinegar was in an 1806 French publication, and by 1815 the term “mayonnaise” was being used to describe it.

Of course, the stuff did not become commercially bottled and sold until its European adherents came to America. It seems that a woman named Amelia Scholorer sold a bottled mayonnaise under the “Mrs. Schlorer’s” brand name in Philadelphia beginning in 1907. (I am not sure I want to know what “Olive-Naise” was).

It was soon after that Mrs. Hellmann began selling her own version of the stuff from the family’s New York delicatessen, with mass marketing by 1912.

Kraft Foods got into the mayonnaise business sometime around 1930 and it sold well enough until the worsening of the Great Depression, when sales took a tumble. With something simple like mayonnaise, it was no trick for a housewife to whip up her own batch of mayo from eggs, vinegar or lemon juice, and a bottle of Mazola – or even to do without altogether. So Kraft decided to do something about it.

What did it do? It introduced Miracle Whip at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. Miracle Whip began as a less expensive alternative to mayonnaise (and, coincidentally, something not easily reproduced outside of a big commercial food company). A Kraft employee devised a machine that could mix and emulsify different ingredients into a stable, creamy state. This machine was dubbed the Miracle Whip. Which turned out to be a great name for the product that was the machine’s output.

So what is Miracle Whip (the condiment)? That answer requires a segue into another home-prepared staple of the pre-industrial age kitchen: boiled dressing. A boiled dressing starts like mayonnaise in combining eggs and vinegar with water, milk or cream, then adding spices and cooking until it gets thick. Sometimes cornstarch was added to maintain the consistency after it cooled. This boiled dressing was much less expensive than actual mayonnaise in an era when vegetable oils were relatively expensive ingredients.

Kraft’s idea was to combine mayonnaise with boiled dressing, which its Miracle Whip machine could emulsify into a consistency like the mayo that everyone had become used to. Because it contained less oil and more water than mayonnaise, it could be manufactured and sold much less expensively. And because of the added sweetness and spice of the boiled dressing part of the mix, Miracle Whip has a completely different flavor profile – something that is both sweeter and tangier than traditional mayo. And better tasting! (At least according to the characters created by Kraft’s advertising department).

Extensive real-life research indicates that where you fall on the Mayo vs. Miracle Whip debate depends on what your mother (or grandmother) slathered on your sandwiches and put into her potato salad when you were a kid. I will freely admit that I grew up in a staunch Miracle Whip family – a product which every adult in my family called “mayonnaise”. I was not confused by this until I saw that Kraft called it “Salad Dressing”. Because I could not imagine the awfulness of a salad with this stuff blobbed on top.

I will also admit something else – a little bit of either product goes a long way with me. If I put a version of the white stuff on a sandwich (which doesn’t always happen), the very thinnest spreading is all I want. But even in small amounts, the sweetness of the Miracle Whip works for me in a way that regular mayo does not.

I will also acknowledge that sometimes people who come from a Miracle Whip Family will get all snobby and decide that “real” mayo is superior. I seem to have raised at least one of those people, but what can you do when one of your kids chooses the wrong path in life? This isn’t just my own opinion, because no less an authority than Col. Sanders (of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame) agreed with me. I know this because I remember the time The Colonel came to check on the KFC franchise in my home town some time in the 1970’s, and was unhappy with what he found. The newspaper reported The Colonel’s displeasure, and the part I remember most vividly was the way he ripped on the quality of the cole slaw he found there. “They’re supposed to use Miracle Whip” was his diagnosis of the substandard side dish.

I think we can agree that neither of these products is especially healthy. Mayo can boast of fewer carbs, but Miracle Whip counters that it has a lower fat content and fewer calories. And both Kraft and Hellmann’s use mainly soybean oil, something that has fewer and fewer friends as time goes on. I will (if begrudgingly) give props to Hellmann’s for using real sugar vs. MW’s inclusion of the dreaded high fructose corn syrup. Personally though, I don’t eat enough of either to affect my health much either way. So it all comes down to what you like.

Or maybe how audacious the manufacturer’s recipes can be. Going into this, I was sure that Miracle Whip would be the hands-down champ of bizarre vintage recipes courtesy of the unholy alliance of corporate test kitchens and advertising agencies. Like a big blob of Miracle Whip to “improve” on fruits like peaches or pairs.

But then it took the addition of gelatin to make the big leagues. Like this “Jelly Roll Salad”, a gelatin salad that sets up in a can, made all the better by a big dollop of Miracle Whip.

But the people at Hellmann’s were not to be outdone – like with this: a “Cranberry Holiday Souffle” salad, made with some combination of fruits (cranberry, orange) and vegetables (lettuce, celery), and made complete with a big glob of mayo on top. It seems that anything could be made a salad if it was perched on a leaf of lettuce. Further searching, though, revealed this recipe to be bush league compared with what Hellmann’s was capable of.

Do you want a peak Mad Men-style mayo concoction? You will find it with the the . . . “Aspic Aquarium”? What could be both tastier and more visually appealing than a bunch of fake fish made of vegetables in a cube of clear gelatin? With, of course, a big blob of Hellmann’s mayonnaise on top.

In our own home, these kinds of frivolities are avoided, with blobs of the white-ish condiment used mostly in things like potato salad or deviled eggs. If, that is, Marianne made deviled eggs. Which she does not, because of a stubborn refusal to consume hard boiled eggs.

Boiled eggs aside, we have been engaged in our own personal taste test. A jar of some kind of healthy mayonnaise (made with olive oil) sits nearly full, aging in place in our refrigerator. A similarly sized jar of Miracle Whip is 2/3 of the way gone, so it is almost time to add a new one to the grocery list. Because we are, it appears, Miracle Whip People. But perhaps our taste buds are defective. Make yourself an aspic aquarium or some cranberry-orange-celery souffle and get back to me.

31 thoughts on “The Debate Where There Is No Possibility Of Compromise: Mayonnaise vs. Miracle Whip”

  1. Mayo. Hands down. The other stuff tastes awful to me.
    I don’t recall if there’s a childhood element to that; I do think there were jars of MW around when I was younger — but I wouldn’t swear to it.

    I even think Kraft mayo’s not that stellar, and I prefer Duke’s Mayo (It’s got Twang!). Even if you guys are MW-adherents, maybe find a small jar of Duke’s and give it a shot?

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    • Duke’s has been one I have never paid attention to – I just looked it up and it is evidently the No. 3 seller. It uses less sugar than the others and includes apple cider vinegar instead of white vinegar, which is apparently what gives it the twang. I will have to start paying attention. And may even try it, but buying a whole jar is quite a commitment! 🙂

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      • I do understand — hence the suggestion to find one of those small jars.

        When I looked them up this morning, I found they have a habanero garlic mayo. That might have to start going in my tuna. 🤔

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  2. Hellmans Mayo, Hellmans Mayo, Hellmans Mayo. (Hellmans is “Real” Mayo, sez so on the label). Miracle Whip is an “abomination”. A cheaper commercial product made to save money and “sort of” emulate mayo, but mayo it ain’t. My Mother, an excellent cook from the south, hipped me years ago to the promotion of “poor peoples food”, as in: “…if you can’t fix it, feature it…”. This is how we get people raving about how they’ve been to New Orleans and love chicory coffee, but my Mother will tell you that chicory was a “coffee extender” for the poor who could not afford real coffee…so “ICK”. Miracle Whip falls into this category. Hence the Miracle Whip vs. Mayo controversy goes beyond the “how you were raised” area, to the “what side of the tracks you were raised on” arena!

    I’ve tried multiple brands of mayo, and it’s Hellmans for me. Kraft, house brands, etc. need not apply! Matt has identified the only acceptable variation: Dukes! Not a fan of using it on a sandwich, but I buy into the “twang” for certain recipes. It is the southern mayo of choice for a lot of cooking, and easy to find when I lived in D.C. I was amazed that my little “high-end” grocery in Milwaukee has a little display of Dukes, so I keep as small jar around for cooking. I have a small jar of Hellmans for sandwiches as well.

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    • Haha, I love your mother’s attitude about “poor people’s food”. I will confess to having that same attitude about chili, which only contains beans because people couldn’t afford enough meat. But that is a whole ‘nuther food debate!

      I suspect that both Marianne and I developed our preferences from parents who grew up in the depression, and had their food tastes formed by their own mothers who had to pay for the groceries. Or, maybe our grandparents believed Kraft’s advertising that proclaimed Miracle Whip’s superior taste. It would have been hard to resist something called Miracle anything in the mid 1930’s. 🙂

      One enlightening thing I read when researching these products is that mayo and MW, for all their similarities, really have two different purposes. Mayo is about being smooth and creamy, without hijacking the flavor of whatever it is added to. Miracle Whip is all about bringing its unique flavor to the front of a dish. I can tell you that after writing this, I intend to start paying more attention to the flavors and textures of foods that use either of these.

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  3. BTW, as an aside, the “Blaxsploitation” spoof film, Undercover Brother; has a whole sub plot about blacks learning to eat mayo so you can “pass” in the white corporate world! Didn’t know it was a “thing” between the races, but funny in the film!

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  4. I have to come down on the side of mayonnaise, although for some time I was skipping both and using mustard on sandwiches. I still use real mayo when I make tuna salad, although we’ve switched to the mayo that includes olive oil.

    The Great Depression must have been really bad if even the Mrs. Sydney Hepworth Heaps of the world had to raise some fast cash by shilling for Miracle Whip.

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  6. Terrific article!

    Mayonnaise for sure, but you’ve exactly nailed the issue in your mentioning of how the matter connects to the composition of grandmother’s potato salad. That’s 100% it for me. My grandmother in rural Maryland taught me everything I have needed for over 60 years about potato salad, deviled eggs, and tomato sandwiches (on white bread)…and all of those things depend on Hellmann’s (also known as Best Foods, West of the Rockies…which has been my worthless fact of choice most of my life). There have been times when I have had to try Miracle Whip because mayonnaise was not available, but those haven’t been happy times.

    Oh, one other thing that my grandmother (and mother) made and consumed were “olive sandwiches”. These consisted of two slices of white bread slathered with Hellmann’s and then a layer of sliced green cocktail olives (they had to be the kind with the pimentos…although as a child, I was unaware that olives did not grow with pimentos inside of them, since I never encountered any other type of olive) in between the slices of bread. Mom and grandma loved those things, but I was kind of hinkey on them. Just like “pimento cheese” (something that seemed to involve orange “cheese” of some sort and mayonnaise…although since I thought that olives and pimentos were the same thing, I was mystified as to how come there were no apparent olives in pimento cheese). Anyway, I wonder if Mrs. Schlorer was going for something similar with her “Olive-Naise”. I’d probably try it…substituting it for the mayonnaise in an olive sandwich. Might taste like childhood.

    Finally, things like fruit and vegetables with dollops of mayonnaise, with or without gelatin…Nope. Hard Nope. Mom and Grandma were all about those things, and actually maintained a whole wall (or at least it seemed that way to me as a kid) of copper molds that they used for creating those things as centerpieces for holiday meals. Usually, there was some sort of fruit and vegetable combination floating inside and the whole thing was covered with a mayo-based dressing. And it was repulsive. Particularly one year when I was in elementary school and I approached the Thanksgiving day meal with some low-level stomach bug. One look at that thing and I beat a hasty retreat from the table. And I don’t think I’ve ever been able to consider one of those combinations ever again. And I don’t own any copper jello molds either. Just in case.

    That last image of the “aquarium” aspic is truly truly bizarre. What’s up with the shadow on the far right? And shouldn’t that be the shadow of a gigantic rabbit? (as in the promotional photos for the film Harvey, starring Jimmy Stewart?)

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    • I have to ask – is it a good idea to rest your preference for mayo on the same people who so avidly consumed those Jell-O concoctions? 😎

      The olive and mayo sandwich sounds really interesting. In college I developed a taste for green olives on my pizza, a taste not shared by many. Green olives on a white bread sandwich fascinates me, and I can see where that combo might demand straight mayo.

      I am also curious how your Asian father handled the Jell-O mold “salads”.

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      • After typing that comment, I took a moment to reflect on my intense feelings about Jell-O/vegetable/fruit/mayonaise concoctions. I really think that the problem that I had with them was that in my mom’s interpretation, these things were always based on fruit-flavored Jell-O to which embedded floaters were added and then (the clincher) mayonnaise was applied. IF she had chosen to use a substrate of neutral gelatin or even some kind of meat flavored aspic (although that doesn’t sound too yummy either) the whole thing might have borne the mayo less repulsively. As it was, the end result was similar (in my mind/gut) to having made Kool-Aid with milk instead of water. At this point, no doubt someone is saying “Hey! We did that all the time when we were kids!”

        Funny story about my dad and all of this…At some point in the early 1970s, General Foods ran a recipe contest where people were encouraged to send in recipes that featured combinations of various General Foods products. The winner would get money, “a year’s supply of…”, a new car, I donno, something fabulous. And your recipe would be featured in ads. My mom got my dad to help her brainstorm ideas…and ultimately they decided to take the angle of coming up with something “Asian” as the hook for an interesting concept. While they could have maybe gone with a Polynesian thing, that would have been too pedestrian for them. No, they came up with some idea (I was only about 10, so I don’t recall every specific of this mom-dad adventure) that involved Jell-O, mandarin oranges, Cool Whip, mayonnaise (of course), almonds and…cooked rice. For my part, I knew that thing was a non-starter when it came to the “Cool Whip and mayonnaise” bit.

        Needless to say, their entry didn’t win. I actually wonder if part of the reason why is that they didn’t specify Miracle Whip vs. mayonnaise. Miracle Whip was from Kraft…which probably even at that time was part of General Foods. It couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with mixing rice and Jell-O….

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      • I LOVE this story!!

        My grandma would make lime Jell-O with shredded lettuce and carrots in it. Simply awful, even though it used no mayo or Miracle Whip. To this day, I can do plain flavored Jell-O, and even Jell-O with fruit. When the vegetables go in, I go out!

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  8. Interesting story! I checked in our fridge and we currently have Hellmann’s Light Mayonnaise Type Dressing – made with Canadian free run eggs and canola oil from the Canadian Prairies! Gluten free too! Doesn’t that tick off a bunch of boxes with the buy Canadian, gluten free crowd?! I expect we have it because my food procurement officer saw it was on sale.

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  9. When I was very young my mother would entice me to eat my broccoli (steamed, of course, as back then the Midwest had no idea there are better ways to cook broccoli) by giving me a small bowl of Miracle Whip in which to dip the florets. Her approach worked well for a number of years.

    But nowadays I find MW to be revoltingly sweet and can’t stomach it at all. Give me a good mayonnaise (I’m also a Duke’s fan) any day. However, I also don’t use it as an ingredient but almost always as a generously slathered condiment for some sort of sandwich, often one featuring fried pork, chicken or fish.

    Thankfully Duke’s is more widely available than it used to be. My in-laws retired to northern Arkansas in the late 1990s and had access to Duke’s, so whenever we went down there or they came up here I invariably came away with a new jar or two.

    Now, let’s brawl over real cheese versus that godawful chemistry experiment gone wrong called Velveeta…

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    • As a decided non-fan of broccoli, there would probably be worse things than Miracle Whip to dip it in, but it doesn’t sound great. And it is interesting how certain products can be so strong regionally but take so long for wider availability.

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  10. A few years ago at the end of a job interview (I was on the panel) my statement about the candidates still prompts me to catch crap. What did I say? None of the above.

    I respect those who like either (or both) but, to me, mayonnaise is utter nastiness. I have to admit to being somewhat relieved when you said your use on a sandwich is minimal.

    So I suppose I will take my wife’s vote and say Mayonnaise!

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    • I told Marianne last night that she and I seem to be the only MW buyers on the internet. But that can’t be true – maybe some are just afraid to admit it in public. 🙂

      Actually, my favorite condiment (if you can call it that) is salt and pepper.

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  12. It appears that the number of nested replies may be limited so I’m throwing this out as a separate comment. Jeff Sun wrote and JP replied to:

    “After typing that comment, I took a moment to reflect on my intense feelings about Jell-O/vegetable/fruit/mayonaise concoctions.”

    Search “regrettable food” and “Lileks”. Warning: this is a rabbit hole that can waste some serious time. But for those of us of a certain age, it’s hilarious.

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  13. Well JP, you can put me in the Mayo camp as I have never tasted Miracle Whip. It was always Kraft Mayonnaise in our house for as long as I can remember for potato salad, tuna salad and/or devilled eggs. Oh my – the Aspic Aquarium, something I have never had, nor any of the gelatin veggie salads with the topping on them. I guess I was missing out.

    I will tell you what else mayo was used for in our household – to make our hair shine. Many years ago, my mom’s hairdresser was an older woman who trained in France and she told us that it was recommended for shiny, healthy hair to put a big blob of mayo in your wet hair, massage it in and put a shower cap on to warm the mayo. It was difficult to rinse out of my long hair and took a while. After a mayo treatment, you cut any remaining grease with pure vinegar. How my hair would shine, but, if I got caught in the rain, or it was a very humid day, one might detect a whiff of vinegar!

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    • I’m straying even farther off topic, but that’s JP’s fault for opening this can of worms. And I often operate in a stream-of-consciousness mode anyway.

      Many years ago I briefly dated a girl who worked in a sub/hoagie/grinder shop. If we were hanging out after she finished a shift she always wanted to take a shower first, but I discouraged it because I loved that she smelled like cold cuts and condiments! And this was long before the Seinfeld episode in which George intermingled food with, uh, romance.

      Hmmm…how would mayo and MW taste on a can of worms?

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