According to a news report I heard, whackjob fundamentalist muslims in Iraq have threatened to kill people who buy mayonnaise. I can understand why some people might find mayo objectionable, but murdering someone just because they bought a jar of it seems a bit extreme. Is there some prohibition in the Koran about this?
“Damn, we’ve run out of unreasonable things to kill people about. Got any ideas?”
- “I dunno. Look in the fridge. What’s the first thing you can see?”
“Mayo.”
- “OK, let’s go with that.”
In seriousness, it seems there’s a fatwa against it because of its tallow contnent. But bear in mind, contrary to popular belief, that “fatwa” just means “edict”:
What mayonnaise contain tallow? No recipe I’ve ever seen for homemade mayonnaise calls for it, and from a cursory glance at ingredients online, major brand names don’t use any either.
Uh, hate ta tellya, but there ain’t no fat from swine in tallow. Fat from pigs/swine is called lard. It’s not hard to tell the difference from the scent. AAMOF, it’s not hard to tell the difference between tallow from cattle (called suet before rendering) and tallow from sheep; the scents are distinctive. Of course, it might be hard to tell any of that, once mixed up in something where it’s a minor ingredient. OTOH, if tallow or lard is used in ordinary cooking, the discerning palate can nearly always tell which, and sometimes even whether it’s fat from beef or mutton.
In a number of different ethnic cuisines, it’s common to use fat from swine to cut the “wild” flavor of venison and other game (especially bear and other game less popular in the U.S.). when that’s done, sometimes it’s via strips of bacon, but more commonly, it is strings (sometimes called laces) of pure, unrendered hog fat stuffed into or pulled through roasts or other thick cuts via a needle of the sort once used for sewing up poultry after stuffing. Lard is probably less hydrogenated than tallow, as it remains soft to semi-liquid at room temperatures, while tallow is very hard at those same temperatures.
I can’t check a mayo label, because I don’t keep it on hand; I use Miracle Whip because it has less egg in it, and once upon a time, had none. I’ve never seen a recipe for mayonnaise that contained animal fat. You need a liquid fat (oil), because otherwise it would be wayyy too thick to blend. Ya gotta whip the ingredients to emulsify it all - egg yolks, oil and vinegar/lemon juice, plus seasonings. Here are some mayonnaise recipes. (The preceding sentence - with links - would have been all run together without TinyURL. Two of the original URLs were ridiculously long; 84 characters in one.)
In any case, the FDA would have unpleasant things to say to any manufacturer selling stuff mislabeled in that fashion in the U.S.
Where was this, anyway?
Hey, it ain’t me saying this, it’s some uninformed imams.
I was aware that tallow is beef. IIRC, it was cattle tallow that caused the Hindu McDonald’s riots in Delhi a few years ago.
I have Hellmans and two kinds of French mayo (Maille and Bénédicta) in my fridge. The only animal products any of them contain is egg.
What did I ever do to Muslim fundies???
You owe them $5.
Can you give us a cite here?
I hope it wasn’t the same Imam who issued those two, kind of hard to talk to people without mingling with them.
“Hold the bacon, hold the mayo, kill the infidel…”?
OTOH, such hostility would be partially explainable if Muslims had been exposed to pork-lard-containing “mayonnaise” (the very thought of which is repellent). Clearly this calls for a concerted program of outreach to the Islamic world with the aim of enlightening them as to the true nature of western, infidel mayo as it is actually made.
Then we can teach them how to make a decent corned-beef-on-rye. 
I would understand if it were Miracle Whip they were concerned about. Blech.
I think you answered your own question.
Maybe the fatwa wants to become a skinnywa?
Remember those screaming mobs burning Danish flags? This was because of those mohammed cartoons. Have the authorities given the “OK” for devout muslims to eat Danish milk,butter,cheese.etc ? :smack:
It could be that mingling in the sense of the fatwa meant procreating.
I have not seen any reliable references to Muslim imams issuing prohibitions about mayonnaise. (As jjimm points out, a “fatwa” is simply an edict, issued by somebody who thinks he’s entitled to do so but doesn’t necessarily have any recognized status as an interpreter of Islamic law. The fact that a particular ruling of this sort is called a “fatwa” doesn’t necessarily imply any death penalty for violating it.)
However, I have seen various queries from Muslims about whether commercially packaged mayonnaise is halal, conforming to Muslim dietary laws. There are concerns about the possible use of alcohol, which is forbidden to Muslims, as a mayonnaise ingredient:
Some mayonnaise brands do contain an ingredient called spirit vinegar, which does have a small amount of alcohol.
It may also be a problem if the mayonnaise producers aren’t using halal-certified equipment, which might possibly be contaminated with non-halal products:
They plan to torpedo any ships carrying mayonnaise to Islamic countries. This will allow them to celebrate their own version of Sinko de Mayo.
(well, somebody had to say it)
Clothahump, thats gotta be the Groaner of the Week!!
The kind I get is certified kosher parve, so it definitely doesn’t have any ingredients that come from cows or pigs. It could very well have vinegar derived from alcohol- there’s no prohibition against alcohol in the kosher laws.
I could understand a ban on Miracle Whip, too. Mayo six months past its expiration date tastes like Miracle Whip.