TODAY is an important day for those of you who have been hiding in the culinary closet. Yes, today is May 5 -- "Stinko de Mayo" -- the international holiday for the Worldwide I Hate Mayonnaise Club. It is a day when mayo-haters shout from the tops of lunch wagons that we are mad as all get out and aren't going to take our food being slimed anymore. It's also a chance for those of you who have suffered mayo abuse in silence to finally step into the light. Mayo haters of
the world come out!I started the Worldwide I Hate Mayonnaise Club about eight years ago. Since then, we have garnered members from Japan to England and from South Africa to Australia. Mayo truly is an international scourge. The word gets out mainly through our Internet site on the Worldwide Web at http://www.nomayo.com. We have been written about in journals around the globe. I have been interviewed extensively on Canadian radio. Only on Canadian radio, which is extremely odd.
I've never been interviewed on German radio, although we do have some club members there. Ditto with the Japanese and Australian radio stations. For some reason, Canadian radio broadcasters are really jazzed with this no-mayo campaign.
They consume great quantities of mayo in Canada. I believe it is because they don't have to spend so much money on the military. We protect their butts, therefore, they eat large quantities of mayo. It's a strange little country. I once asked a Canadian radio personality if they eat mayo on moose up there. He chuckled, as if he were dealing with a small child, and said, no, no, we don't eat moose with mayo. We eat salmon with mayo. We eat moose with Miracle Whip. Ho, ho,ho.
This, I believe, was an attempt at humor. But who knows. It is a strange little country.
THERE is no real news to report from the front lines of the mayo battle. We still have not managed to convince Pizza Hut to stop putting mayo on certain pizzas. I got a letter from a Pizza Hut manager scolding me for suggesting that pizzas were unhealthy enough, what with the three types of cheeses and 14 types of fatty meats on them. He was indignant. He said pizza is about the healthiest food around. Yeah. And Joe Camel works out with Jack LaLanne. Everyone knows that pizza is only healthy when it's eaten for breakfast, cold, so that all the fat has hardened and it slips through your body without clinging to any major organs.
There is a gradual awakening to the fact that mayo is horrible for you. HMSA magazine ran a picture of me on the cover last year holding a jar of the dreaded gunk. It's a sad day when I am held up as some sort of health icon. Anyone can see that if I'm not downing mayo, then something must be responsible for my shape. But it was nice of HMSA to promote the Worldwide I Hate Mayonnaise Club, even though we don't hate mayo on health grounds. We hate it on moral grounds. We hate it because it's the right thing to do.
Chef Sam Choy also has become an unwitting -- albeit large -- pawn in our battle against mayo. I appeared on his television cooking show only once, when I made him an honorary member of the No Mayo Club. He still cooks with mayo, but he feels so guilty about it, every time he does, he looks in the camera and says, "Eh, Charley, sorry, eh?" So even though he still indulges, he's nice enough to spread our point of view.
So, we are doing good. But like I said, I know there are many of you closet mayo-haters out there who are afraid to express yourself. Today is your day. "Stinko de Mayo" is the day that we celebrate our good taste. If Ellen Degeneres can proclaim her sexuality on national television, the least you can do is tell the idiot making your sandwich that if he spreads mayo on the bread, you'll toss it like a Frisbee into his face.