Sauce recipes are infinitely versatile, providing a fantastic playground for innovation and the adaptation of new formulations, either to meet or anticipate consumer expectations. In 1806, André Viard published Le Cuisiner impérial, a collection of some 950 recipes. It was he who perfected the recipe for remoulade sauce, which in a way is the ancestor of mayonnaise; but remoulade is based on the production of a roux, from flour and butter, to which meat stock is added... a far cry from mayonnaise. Mayonnaise, the fruit of the encounter between oil and egg, is one of the jewels of French gastronomy. Its archetype is the hard-boiled egg/mayonnaise, in which mayonnaise plays a role in facilitating swallowing, given the brittle texture of the egg white and the floury structure of the cooked yolk. In addition, mayonnaise is the mother sauce, the historical basis for numerous variations such as tartar, bourguignonne, barbecue, andalusian, kebab, aioli and other sauces.
This fact sheet looks at the composition of mayonnaise, some economic data relating to this market, as well as the manufacturing process and nutritional aspects.