Kewpie mayonnaise

Photo courtesy    My Asian Grocer

With the rise in popularity of Japanese food in this country, has come the rise in popularity of Kewpie mayonnaise.

I was reminded of this recently when I bought some take-away from a Japanese café in the city. The shop was busy and noisy and my hearing isn’t what it used to be. The man behind the counter waved something in a container over the food and I asked for a small amount. Later, when I opened my lunch bag, the contents were slathered with squiggles of Kewpie mayonnaise.

What intrigues me most about Kewpie mayonnaise is not the actual product but the name; having an enquiring mind, I searched through the Encyclopedia Electronica to find out more.

The origins of Kewpie Mayonnaise go back to the 1920s, when Toichiro Nakashima, who spent some time a few years earlier in the United States and Britain, studying food production techniques, started Nakashimato Corporation, a food production business.

 He brought a jar of mayonnaise back to Japan from the United Sates and after making adjustments to the ingredients to better suit Japanese tastes, this famous mayonnaise came into being.

As for the name, not a lot of information is available.  I am assuming the name and the figure may have derived from the Kewpie comic-strip drawings of the well-known American cartoonist, Rose O’Neill, who was a prolific artist at that time.

The ingredients of commercially produced Kewpie mayonnaise are: vegetable oil, egg, vinegar, spices and flavouring.  The egg yolks only are used, which give the mayo a richer flavour; rice vinegar is used instead of white vinegar and MSG also makes its particular contribution to the end-result taste.

If you are interested in making your own version of Kewpie Mayonnaise, you might like to try this recipe.

I won’t be making it; when it comes to dressing for salads I’m more of a vinaigrette person.