Why Tamil Nadu banned mayonnaise, and its strange Madras connection

Indian Express

28-04-2025

You've probably heard that Tamil Nadu has banned mayonnaise made using raw eggs, because it is giving people a stomach bug. What you probably don't know is that there is a close relationship between Madras – the old name for Chennai – and mayonnaise.
The two came together in 1953, thanks to a luncheon held at the Great Hall at Westminster School in London for Queen Elizabeth II. It was to honour her coronation later that year.
The task of feeding the Queen and some 350 international dignitaries fell on Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume, the principals of the London branch of the prestigious French cookery school, Le Cordon Bleu.
Among the various Frenchified delicacies served at the luncheon, one stood out. It was a chicken salad that Spry and Hume christened 'Poulet Reine Elizabeth'. What was unique about it was that it was held together with a mixture of thick mayonnaise and Madras Curry Powder.
Okay, the Madras Curry Powder bit is probably untrue. What is true, though, is that Poulet Reine Elizabeth, later known as Coronation Chicken, spread like wild spicy fire across pubs and restaurants in London, where Madras Curry Powder was the most commonly used spice blend.
Indeed, across the pond, in the US, delis began selling a Coronation Chicken-style salad and called it Madras Chicken Salad, or a Madras Curry Chicken Salad. Its main ingredients were smoked chicken, tomato ketchup, apricots, raisins, spring onions, coriander leaves, and mayonnaise laced with Madras Curry Powder. It might not be that popular anymore, but you can still find the recipe on the interwebs and YouTube.
Mayo, on its own, has been around for centuries. One story says it derives its name from Port Mahon, in the island of Menorca in Spain, which was captured by the French from the British in 1756. The French chefs ran short of cream for their sauces and devised a way to mimic it by whisking together egg yolks and oil. The resulting sauce came to be known as ' mahonnaise,' and later as 'mayonnaise.'
Other origin stories locate it in the French town of Bayonne, where the egg and oil emulsion was supposedly first created. From Bayonne came ' bayonnaise ', which gradually morphed into mayonnaise. Another French theory is that the term comes from ' moyen ', an old French word for egg yolk – hence moyennaise, and then mayonnaise.
The mayonnaise in India
In India, mayo was mostly eaten by the Westernised elites, in colonial clubs and their post-independence copycat restaurants. Its ubiquitous presence in street food is something entirely new. Now, every hawker has a bottle of mayonnaise, which they squeeze over anything and everything – from sandwich and kathi roll filling, to veg momo and paneer tikka.
In the northern states, where eateries have to cater to vegetarians, the mayo served is almost always eggless. In the South, where eating eggs is much more common, the roadside mayonnaise is likely to be an original recipe, using raw egg yolks, or even entire raw eggs.
That, as any food scientist will tell you, is a recipe for disaster in hot climates. Eggs can carry Salmonella bacteria, which can cause stomach infections, resulting in diarrhoea, fever, and dehydration. In extreme cases, patients might even have to be hospitalised.
Salmonella is killed when eggs are heated beyond 160°f for 30 seconds. The other way to make them safe to eat is to pasteurise them by holding eggs at 140- 145°f for three-and-a-half minutes. Neither of these is done in traditional mayonnaise recipes.
So, when a raw egg-based mayo is kept on the countertop next to a stove, out in the hot sun, it acts as a day on the beach for bacteria of all kinds. They multiply and contaminate every food item that has been blessed with a shower of mayo.
In fact, traditional recipes for homemade mayonnaise, meant for Western home cooks, stipulate that it should be refrigerated and consumed within a week. Even in colder climes, mayonnaise is considered a delicate, slightly risky condiment.
Then why use raw egg yolks at all?
The reason is that yolks contain an emulsifier called egg lecithin. It is made of molecules having a fat-attracting tail and a water-attracting head. When an emulsifier is added to oil and water, which would normally not mix, the tails hold onto fat droplets, and the heads attach themselves to water droplets. This is how an emulsifier, like a lecithin, holds oil and water droplets together to create a smooth, creamy emulsion.
At the same time, the heads repel the fat droplets, keeping them apart, so that they don't separate into large masses of fat, and stay evenly suspended in the water base.
In the case of mayonnaise, the egg yolk holds together vinegar and oil when all three are whisked together. The method is to first slowly emulsify the oil by whisking it into the egg yolk, drop by drop. According to the celebrated chef, Heston Blumenthal, one egg yolk can emulsify two kilograms of oil, but a standard recipe uses one yolk for every 115-150 grams (125-165 ml) of oil.
Commercially sold eggless, or vegan, mayonnaise usually contains soy lecithin, the most commonly used vegetarian emulsifier. You will find it in chocolates, ice cream, sliced bread, biscuits, and hundreds of other packaged foods sold in India. It is often mentioned in the ingredients as E 322 and INS 4150.
Soy lecithin (or lecithins of sunflower seeds) works in the same way as egg yolks do in traditional mayo recipes. However, anyone who has tasted both kinds of mayonnaise will agree that the vegan 'eggless' mayos lack the rich umami flavours and the mouthfeel of a true egg yolk-based mayonnaise. But there can be no doubt that eggless mayonnaise is much safer to use in hot climates.
Here are two easy recipes – one for traditional egg-based mayo, and the other eggless. The eggless mayonnaise uses soya milk, which has a small amount of soy lecithin. The egg-based mayo can be easily made with a normal balloon whisk. You will need a mixer-grinder or a hand-held stick blender to make the eggless mayo, because it needs much higher levels of whisking power.
Method:
· Place the egg yolks in a large bowl and mix in the mustard sauce.
· Use a balloon whisk to slowly whisk in the oil drop by drop.
· Once you have added 80-100 ml of the oil and the mixture has thickened, add the remaining oil in a slow steady stream while whisking it constantly.
· Once all the oil has been incorporated, whisk in the vinegar.
· Add the salt and red chilli powder (if using) and mix well.
· Taste and adjust the seasoning.
· Remove the mayonnaise into an airtight container and refrigerate.
· Use within 5-7 days.
Method:
· Chill the soya milk, vinegar, and oil for at least an hour. You can keep the oil in the freezer to make it as cold as possible.
· Pour the soya milk, vinegar, and mustard sauce in the tall container of a hand-blender or in a mixer jar. Mix well till the ingredients have blended together.
· Now gradually add the oil, drop by drop, and blend. If you are using a mixer-grinder, then mix the oil in short bursts.
· Once one-third of the oil has got incorporated, you can pour the rest in a steady thin stream, while continuously mixing with the hand blender.
· If you are using a mixer-grinder, give one-minute breaks after every minute of blending, so that the emulsion doesn't heat up too much.
· Keep blending till the mayonnaise reaches a 'soft peak' stage. Do not overbeat, otherwise the mayonnaise will break and curdle.
· Set aside for an hour. Then remove to an airtight container and refrigerate.