General Mahon: Inventor of Mayonnaise..or not.

Einhard

Has anyone every heard of a link between the "invention" of mayonnaise and an Irish general in Napoleon's armies? When I was doing my Leaving Cert, our excellent and highly respected history teacher told us the story of how this general invented the condiment in France, and that it took its name from his. I never really thought much of it at the time, but it pops into my head every now and then when I see mayonnaise advertised. The more I thought about it though, the less plausible the story seemed. So I googled it just now and there's nothing to suggest that the story is any any way true. This teacher though, wouldn;t have been the type to make things up of the top of his head, so I was wondering if anyone else had heard similar?

Also, just to expand the theme somewhat...does anyone have other examples of beliefs or facts which you held for whatever reason only to find that they were completely false?

franc 91

It isn't very plausible I'm afraid. If you look at the page (in French) on fr.wikipédia - the first thing they say is that the origin of the name and the sauce is controversial and they quote Alain Rey who is one of the most important lexicographers in France today.
Several possible origins of the word are given, the first one is Mahon (with an accent on the 'o') the capital of the island of Minorca which was taken from an English occupying force by the French Admiral Richelieu in 1756. His cook served it to him made from the only two ingredients that he had at his disposal - eggs and oil.
Others have suggested that the word comes from magnonaise (which comes from the verb manier) or moyennaise which comes from moyeu - the middle or yolk in old French.
Bayonne and the region of la Mayenne are also possible sources.
http://fr.wikipedia.com/wiki/Mayonnaise
Just to add that this idea that it comes from MacMahon does circulate in France

looksee

Yes, it was a theory that was doing the rounds, you teacher did not make it up. I heard it a few years ago though I wasn't very impressed with it as a theory. One of the mayo manufacturers picked it up and used it on their jars around that time.

Delancey

Yeah , Hellmans carried that story about General Mcmahon in their adverts.
A similar fable concerns how Marmalade came by its name - the story goes that when Marie Antoinette was ill her chef made up a batch of the stuff and the name came about by combining ' Mam ' with ' Malade ' which is french for ill or sick - dunno if this is true.

slowburner

Undoubtedly, Mayonnaise originated in Bayonne.
The chap who invented it, happened to have a cold at the time the sauce was named.

Peregrinus

The origin of the word is uncertain, but there's really no possibility that it was named after McMahon. The name of the sauce had made it into English by 1823, which means it must be even older than that in French. But Marshal MacMahon did not achieve public prominence until the Crimean War, more than thirty years later.

tac foley

Delancey wrote: »

A similar fable concerns how Marmalade came by its name - the story goes that when Marie Antoinette was ill her chef made up a batch of the stuff and the name came about by combining ' Mam ' with ' Malade ' which is french for ill or sick - dunno if this is true.

Re - marmalade - According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "marmalade" appeared in English language in 1480, borrowed from French marmelade which, in turn, came from the Portuguese marmelada. According to José Pedro Machado’s Dicionário Etimológico da Língua Portuguesa, the oldest known document where this Portuguese word is to be found is Gil Vicente's play Comédia de Rubena, written in 1521:
Temos tanta marmelada Que minha mãe vai me dar um pouco In Portuguese, according to the root of the word, which is marmelo, 'quince', marmelada is a preserve made from quinces, quince cheese. Marmelo in turn derives from Latin melimelum, 'honeyquince cheeseapple, which in turn comes from the earlier Greek μελίμηλον (melímēlon), from 'μέλι' (meli), 'honey' + 'μήλον (mēlon), 'apple'.

tac

Rudy Jakma

Teachers sometimes use stories that cannot easily be verified to get the attention of their pupils.
And he did just that, or this conversation would not have taken place on this forum.
Good teaching means captivating the students.

The "sauce mahonaise " story still goes around, just like the one about "Marie malade".

The version I heard about mayo was about a descendant of the "wild geese" who defended Minorca against admiral Nelson.
There is a house across the harbour in ... Port Mahon .... where Nelson stayed with his mistress.

So there might well have been a grain of truth in the story.

History, anyway, has had a tendency to have been written by the victors of wars or struggles for ascendency to the throne.

It is up to the historians to separate fact from fiction, not always easy and often unsuccessful.
But most of the time interesting !

uch

Menorcans will tell you it was invented in their Capital, Mahón.

tac foley

...and of course, the Garibaldi biscuit was named after the famous Italian general, Guiseppe Biscuit.

tac