As long as you don’t mayo instead of butter the outside of your grilled cheese sandwiches(Shudder) I don’t care.
When I delivered mail in 1970 I would sometimes eat lunch at a lunch counter run by two nice black ladies. I had to stop them putting mayo on my bologna sandwich. :eek:
So that’s one I never heard.
When deciding what restaurant to eat at, I have had a Lithuanian from Lithuania tell me she did not like spicy food and that Lithuanian cuisine was not really spicy. And an Indian from South India complain that various dishes were not spicy enough. But I would have thought that a stereotypical American would have grown up exposed to a lot of (regional) American food no matter what their “extraction”.
PS stereotypical English food is chicken tikka masala and vindaloo, right? 
I think the first time I heard about “white people love mayonnaise” was via Martin Mull.
Sure, she’s from New York City and has been exposed to it, she just won’t eat it. (When she’s come to Panama and we go to get ice cream, which has wonderful flavors like mango, passion fruit, and guanabana, she invariably gets vanilla.) Many of the others in my family, which is Irish-German, love spicy food. Mexican and Indian food is very popular.
However, we are talking about stereotypes, and the stereotype is definitely about those of northern European ancestry, not just white people in general.
This article mentions a big American mayonnaise boom around the beginning of the 20th century, with as many as 600 commercial brands being sold.
Nothing there about blacks or whites or Christians, but it is mentioned that “people want their coffee a certain way, and they want their mayonnaise a certain way”, and that “it triggers profound responses and cultural divisions.”
I don’t know how authentic this site is, but mayonnaise is listed as among the essential ingredients of soul food. Mayonnaise is popular in the Southern US, and soul food shares a great deal with traditional Southern cuisine, so I don’t think there’s any real aversion on the part of black people. I think it’s more of a joke than anything real.
Two other random wrinkles:
-I noticed when I was traveling in Western Europe that mayonnaise is often served with fries, in lieu of ketchup. So that’s a point for white people loving mayo, but against white Americans loving it as much as others.
-As far as mayo being the antithesis to spicy food, Sriracha and other hot sauces are often blended with mayo; these condiments are really popular in LA hipster burger joints and bars serving gourmet bar food right now. But the general popularity of spicy stuff may owe something to our large Mexican population. Not saying they’re the ones eating all of it, but they’ve influenced the local palate considerably.
♫ Backs broke bending, digging holes to plant the seeds
. The owners ate the cane and the workers ate the weeds ♫
. . -Kate & Anna McGarrigle
That was before Tabasco sauce, since found on many white-folks’ tables. BTW I seem to recall down-home spicy BBQ sandwiches slathered with plain mayo. And any eaters looking for the best of both worlds can buy spicy mayonesa if too lazy to make it.
"To Mel Brooks, a Midwesterner was someone who “drives a white Ford station wagon, eats white bread, vanilla milkshakes, and mayonnaise.”
“Anytime somebody orders a corned beef sandwich on white bread with mayonnaise, somewhere in the world, a Jew dies,” goes one version of the old Milton Berle joke. "
So it seems that the derivation is – middle class WASPs eat mayo on white bread — other people don’t.
And – forgive me – I never knew that mayo was parve.
So I think that’s where it’s come from. But I agree: this is new. Black people did not use to strongly identify with Jewish people, and even when ‘black pride’ was emphasizing ‘black food’ (not a strong theme as I remember), that didn’t mean identifying with eastern-european or Italian condiments.
Same here. A sandwich with mustard and mayonnaise is “goyische.” Lenny Bruce had a routine claiming Miracle Whip is Jewish and Mayo is goyish. I, goyish to the extreme, can barely taste the difference.
In Annie Hall, Annie orders a pastrami on white bread with mayonnaise. That’s supposed to show that she doesn’t know much about typical Jewish food. That was 43 years ago, and I think that it’s long out of date as a valid observation.
Remind me to pack my own lunchbox if on the road with Senator Warner.
Right. A lot of it seems to come from an apparently longstanding running gag about differences between Jews and WASPs in the eastern cities that eventually got transmogrified into some sort of identifying “white people” thing(*), who eat white bread with a white garnish.
FWIW we PRicans seem to be fine and dandy with mayo though I am not particularly enthusiastic about it, to me it’s like, eh, not a deal breaker.
(*But Jello mold salads… that IS white midwesterner fare, right?) 
I’m a white guy who grew up in the hill of east Tennessee, and I can’t stand mayo. My wife is Jewish, and she does like it. My parents like spicy food, but also like mayo. My Dad got spicy Thai food when they visited us in Brooklyn and loved it.
The Titanic, hauling a load of the finest French mayonnaise destined for transshipment to Veracruz Mexico, tragically sank and lost the treasured condiment. Hence the maudlin celebration of Sinko de Mayo. Jonathan Swift is credited with an appendix to his famed “A Modest Proposal” suggesting mayonnaise be made from mashed-up residents of County Mayo, Ireland. Or so I have heard.
Are we missing the obvious thing that mayonnaise is *literally *white, and so, like white bread, there’s a bit of sympathetic magic in the association?
True enough. Light colored food tends to be associated with blandness (often unfairly). Vanilla, milk, rice…
Awful far-fetched joke, thought up by myself and a friend when on holiday in China. A generation ago at any rate, a Mandarin expression very often heard there, was “Mei you” (pronounced ‘mayo’) – with numerous generally negative connotations: there isn’t any in stock / it’s forbidden / we can’t help you / etc., etc.
We devised a scenario involving a Chinese-run sandwich shop in Castlebar, the chief town of County Mayo. Charles Mayo, a founder of the Mayo Clinic, is in those parts; he calls in at the shop, wanting to buy a sandwich including a layer of the much-loved salad-accompanying condiment. There has unfortunately been a hitch in deliveries from the manufacturer, and the shop has none of the desired substance. The proprietor accordingly says: “Mayo mayo mayo Mayo”.
Nah, Mayo is cheap. You can get 30 oz. for about $1.94.
In the Simpsons Izzy’s Deli has a Krusty the Clown sandwich which is ham, sausage, bacon, and mayonnaise on white bread.