It wasn’t something I’ve ever heard at all well until the last decade, and I literally can’t find anything about it before the 2002 film “Undercover Brother” uses it extensively as a joke where a black man refuses to eat mayo.
Did that movie literally just invent that stereotype out of whole cloth and people just went with it or is there a further back starting point for it?
The above OP and “black people like spicy food” are the two most inaccurate stereotypes that exist in my experience.
I’ve heard it about Jews since long before I heard it about black people. It’s not that true for us, either.
Charles Bronson’s character in the movie “Murphy’s Law”* refused to eat mayonnaise.
*a candidate for worst Bronson movie ever.
And I believe those are related. Because what I’ve always heard is that white people love mayonnaise because they like bland things. It had to do with it being used in tons of recipes, like those various “salads.”
I could see that being extended to the most prominent non-white group NOT liking mayonnaise, especially since there already exists the idea that black people like things spicy–i.e. not bland.
I have heard two things. I don’t know how true either of them are.
The first is that it started as basically an insult to upper class white people who put mayonnaise on salads and things. Basically, blacks like “real” spices and upper class whites pay a lot of money for bland crap.
The second is that it goes all the way back to slavery. Whites ate good food and could therefore use more subtle spices. Black food wasn’t as good, so blacks got used to heavy spices to cover up the rotten food.
Just as one additional data point in “the stereotype is that mayonnaise is a white people food” column, there was an episode of King of the Hill in which the Laotian neighbor Minh is trying to cozy up to Dale and his fellow gun club rednecks as part of a ploy to get into the local country club. On her way out, her husband Khan, who dislikes those people intensely but has been cheerleading her efforts because he wants to get into the country club more than anything, tells her, “have fun! Eat lots of mayonnaise!”
That episode aired in 2007, so it doesn’t predate Undercover Brother, but it makes the mayo thing seem less like a thing about black people than a thing about white people.
The Senator from Virginia certainly isn’t helping: Sen. Mark Warner's mayo-heavy tuna melt tutorial met with jeers | CNN Politics
Mayo is expensive!?
The obvious questions are, is the USA actually a world outlier in per capita mayonnaise consumption (and who are numbers 2 and 3?), and is there further data on which Americans are eating all that mayonnaise and who may be abstaining, besides obviously vegans?
Perhaps the movie in the OP simply made up a racist joke that blacks do not appreciate French cuisine.
I think there’s long been an association between Christian white people and bland food. Mayonnaise fits into that, as does white bread.
It’s why there are jokes about white people potato salad.
Another example is the scene in Hannah and Her Sisters where Woody Allen tries converting to Catholicism and part of it is him buying white bread and mayonnaise. (There’s also the scene in Annie Hall where he makes a face when Annie Hall orders a pastrami sandwich with mayo and white bread, one of many jokes about her WASPy background.)
There does seem to be some history as to why European food tends towards less spice.
Source dubious but here we go:
Mayonnaise consumption per capita.
11 Countries that Consume the Most Mayonnaise - Insider Monkey Warning: Slideshow I suffered through so you don’t have to.
I’m Caucasian and two of my favourite foods are fried chicken and watermelon.
:eek:
I’ve heard the part about some European ethnicities not liking spicy food but I’ve literally never heard it about European American s in general. If anything lately the stereotype is of the “adventurous” eater who always orders the hottest possible thinking that it’s automatically more “authentic”.
Million Dollar Chicken Recipe winner who doesn’t use salt and pepper. Oprah show:
No…there’s no salt or pepper in it
Does that include non-European countries? E.g., the Wikipedia article on mayonnaise includes a link claiming that Chile is #3, but I could not find the original source.
Yes, it does include non-European countries, and Chile is one of the top eleven.
I know it’s not true but there’s also a stereotype of something else black men in particular don’t eat…
Moderator Note
Let’s not use this thread as an excuse to reference other racist jokes.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
The stereotype is for WASPs and others of northern European extraction. It wouldn’t apply to Italians, for example.
My sister-in-law, who is of German/English ancestry, refuses to eat any food with even a hint of spiciness.
Well just for the record, I love mayonaise and I love spicy foods too, so they are not mutually exclusive. One of my favorite sushi restaurants has a gallon jug of Hellman’s on their counter.