Mayonnaise
From Chempedia
MAYONNAISE
Contents |
History
In 1765, a French chef of the Duc de Richelieu discovered mayonnaise. Originally called “mahonnaise”, this sauce was created in light of the Duc’s victory at the British Port Mahon. A sauce made of cream and eggs was to be made for the victory feast. The chef used olive oil instead of cream and “mahonnaise” was created. Printing errors in early cookbooks gave mayonnaise its current name. French cities Bayonne and Mayons claim to be the birth place of mayonnaise. An unexplained myth told of cooks in Fort Mahon that claimed women should not attempt to make mayonnaise during menstruation time, or the mayonnaise won’t blend together as well. Early French immigrant cooks brought the recipe to United States. In 1910, Nina Hellman made a dressing for her husband, Richard. He used it on sandwiches and salads that he served to others in New York City. At first, Richard sold two different versions of the sauce. One of which had a blue ribbon tied around it. In 1912, there was a great demand for the “ribbon” version. Richard then purchased a fleet of trucks and built a manufacturing plant. Eventually merging with Best Foods Inc., Hellman’s now accounts for 45% of mayonnaise in the United States.
Emulsions
An emulsion is when small droplets of one liquid is suspended within another liquid which otherwise would not mix. The blending together that is required for making mayonnaise is not just for mixing purposes, there is a large amount of science behind this mixing of simple ingredients. Water and oil are the basic ingredients of mayonnaise. A common fact about oil and water is that they do not blend well. This is because oil is denser than water. If oil and water are mixed, they separate soon after the mixing or beating stops.
An emulsion has three parts. First, the dispersion phase consists of suspended droplets of liquid. In mayonnaise, this phase is oil. The second part is the continuous phase or what the droplets will be dispersed into. In mayonnaise the continuous phase is water. The last part is the emulsifier, which keeps the liquids from separating.
Mayonnaise is an example of a relatively stable emulsion. The basic proportions of ingredients for mayonnaise are one egg yolk and an eighth cup vinegar or lemon juice for each cup of oil. The more oil you add the thicker the mayonnaise becomes. When the oil becomes separated into droplets, which are surrounded by a film of emulsifier, the oil then becomes immobilized and loses its fluidity. As more oil is added, more droplets are formed and the interfacial area between oil and vinegar increases.
Colloids
Emulsions like mayonnaise are colloids. Colloids are heterogeneous mixtures made up of microscopic droplets suspended in an immiscible (unmixable) material. These droplets are less than 0.001mm in size, which is small enough to pass through filter paper. Mayonnaise is a liquid-liquid colloid combination where there are tiny droplets of liquid suspended in another liquid. Mayonnaise is an emulsion with a thick texture and a smooth appearance. Even though mayonnaise is made up of two liquids, the small particles are in constant motion and they don’t separate. Light is constantly reflected off of the small particles because they are smaller than wavelengths of light, making the substance seem uniform to the naked eye, even though it is a mixture.
Problems
Since some emulsions are such unstable mixtures, there can be many problems with them. One problem is the liquids separating. In oil-in-water emulsions, the oil droplets come together creating larger droplets and eventually come out of the mixture. This is called coalescence. The solution to this problem is an emulsifier or a surfactant. These are molecules that prevent larger droplets of oil from forming. Mayonnaise uses an emulsifier found in egg yolk, gelatin, and soy beans called Lecithin. Lecithin, a fatty substance classified in the phospholipids group of substances, is composed of B vitamins, phosphoric acid, choline, linoleic acid, and inositol. The emulsifier can be mixed into the oil or the water. Once the oil and water are mixed it will take up the space between the two around each droplet of oil. When two droplets of oil collide, the surfactant prevents them from forming larger droplets, keeping the oil in the mixture.
Benefits
Products today in your local grocery store were made by the emulsion process. One of them is mayonnaise, which can be found in many different forms. Mayonnaise (not including reduced-fat and fat-free mayonnaise) contains a minimum of 65-percent oil by weight by U.S. law. Egg is required to be the only emulsifier used in regular commercial mayonnaise by the standard of identity law. Mayonnaise substitutes are usually made with modified food starch, cellulose gel and other thickeners and emulsifiers for less fat content. Interestingly enough, there is actually more oil in homemade mayonnaise than that of store bought, which accounts for the reason that this not only tastes better but also spoils at a quicker rate. For non-mayonnaise substitutes, there are salad dressings such as Miracle Whip made by Kraft. Miracle Whip is a much sweeter and less fatty version that is more prevalent in the northern United States.
A common recipe for mayonnaise is:
3 Egg yolks
1/2 ts Lemon juice -or-1/2 ts Vinegar
1 pinch Black pepper
3/4 pt. Olive oil
1/2 ts Salt
The recipe for making homemade mayonnaise is to combine vinegar or lemon juice with egg yokes and add oil slowly while quickly whisking the egg combination together with either a high speed egg beater or by hand.
Researched and written by:
Ali Wilson Brian Sweezy Heather Korkko Sara Rehm
References
"Chemistry of Food." http://van.hep.uiuc.edu/van/qa/section/States_of_Matter_and_Energy/States_of_Matter/20020428152522.htm. 26 September 2005.
"The Hawkeye Paper." http://www.thehawkeye.com/columns/Saar/Saar_0626.html. 26 September 2005.
Lambrich, U., H. Schubert. "Emulsification using microporous systems." Journal of Membrane Science. Volume 257. Issues 1-2. (76-84).
Mitchell, Patricia B. "Mayo Info." 2002. http://www.foodhistory.com/foodnotes/leftovers/mayo/info/. 26 September 2005.
"What is Mayonnaise?" HowStuffWorks. http://home.howstuffworks.com/questions617.htm. 26 September 2005.
Micropore Technologies: Emulsions. 2003. http://www.microporetechnologies.co.uk/emulsions.html. 8 November 2005.
Silberg, Martin S. Third Edition Chemistry: The Molecular Nature of Matter and Change. New York, NY 2003.
