When the Hellman's runs low, we resort to eating other types of egg-oil emulsions. For the cheesy-creepy factor you can't beat Kewpie Mayonnaise:
Kewpie Mayonnaise is native to Japan, but common in China (in fact the back of the package states that Kewpie in China is a "Chinese-Japanese joint venture"). There are four kinds of Kewpie Mayonnaise available in our local markets: Regular (pictured); sweet; half-fat sweet; thousand island dressing-style. Here in China, people eat Mayonnaise on things that we wouldn't, like fruit. Whenever you order fruit salad in a restaurant, it comes with some kind of mayonnaise product on it (Can you imagine eating watermelon covered in 'nnaise? How about apple? Or maybe Kiwi?)
Kewpie Mayonnaise packaging takes a little getting used to. It comes in a squeezie container or a little bag. But as you can see from this photo, the container isn't very sturdy.One benefit of this packaging is that when the mayonnaise gets low, you can just sort of ring out the container.The flavor isn't fab -- the regular tastes like Tartar Sauce without the pickle pieces. And even the regular (non-sweet) mayo is much sweeter than U.S. mayo is.
But the best part is that each bottle of Kewpie Mayonnaise (except the thousand-island dressing product) comes with -- you guessed it -- a Kewpie doll. Here is one, hermetically sealed in protective plastic:
Mo is always happy when we bring home Kewpie Mayonnaise -- his entourage is growing at a nice clip:
1 comment:
Thank you. This is extremely edifying. And amusing. Which is a good combo.
I have to report that *some* folks in the US do (or at least, used to) use mayo/Miracle Whip on fruit. In fact, my mom did, which grossed us out. She liked it on her jello. And once, when I requested a peanut-butter-banana sandwich in 2nd grade (I must have seen one on TV), she put mayo on it, because, she said, she ran out of margarine.
Needless to say, I did not eat my lunch that day.
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