Mayonnaise is a Mother Sauce

The timeline on these events are a bit skewed in my recollection, but that is not important.

My mother is an artist. Though she no longer makes art, she embodies it. The combination of this, and having half a dozen siblings, taught me the art of visual cues. It’s similar to the pattern recognition used by all humans to stay alive, but fine tuned.

I could always tell the braai that day was going to be something special, when I opened the fridge, and a store bought dip stared back at me. The bright green label on the sour cream and chives and the deep purple of the balsamic vinegar tub were small joys. They sat nestled between leftover microwave vegetable surprise and half a polony in a sandwich bag. That polony caused more fights than I can count. Hindsight makes that feel both funny and a little sad.

These were the visuals I used to identify the layout of the day, to gauge the situation. It usually also meant we would have company, and that usually meant there would be potato salad. Something a younger version of me had plenty of hours in the day for. Potatoes. With the joy of boiled eggs, mayonnaise, and sometimes apples mixed in, what was not to love? And it was a salad. I stopped believing it was a salad when my mother started mixing in condensed milk.

Food was the center of these social gatherings, but the heart was always the conversation. The catching up with people you just spoke to on the phone last night. It was an excuse to see each other, and that made the food incredible.

In truth, I was vegetarian at this point, or vegan, depending on how much attention I needed that day. So the braai aspect was entirely irrelevant. My mother, who was trying (or enabling, but who’s keeping score, bless her) bought me a ton of Fry’s products at this point, vegetarian and vegan substitutes for things like sausages, pies, and hamburger patties. I remember they had an “Asian” inspired hamburger patty. Who would have thought I would one day call Asia home, and I’ve yet to find anything remotely similar. Closest I ever got was eating a Lotteria classic cheeseburger through the wrapper by accident mid conversation.

My family truly tried their best with me. I appreciate it, guys.

I sit back and wonder now what part of the balsamic vinegar dip contained balsamic vinegar. And the sour cream and chives left you smelling like an Amish onion storeroom. But the truth is I would absolutely dip a little cracker into one of those around a wrought iron table on my mother’s patio right now.

Years later I was in my first apartment entertaining friends around an office table that functioned as our dining room table. It had a large wooden support down the middle at the base which made it entirely uncomfortable. I absolutely loved it. Like all students, we had various different chairs, a computer chair, two garden chairs, a bean bag and a piano stool. We ate a lot around that table. I fed a lot of people. And I brewed my first apple beer in the garden. (Sorry Dad, we accidentally melted one of your coolers.)

I made a lot of cheap food back then, and I was really good at it. My mother taught me how to navigate a supermarket, without knowing it she had trained me on exactly when the best time was to shop, right as they start marking things down for the day. I was truly never consciously aware of this until recently. One of the things I was most proud of making during those days were grilled cheese sandwiches. My secret ingredient? Mayonnaise mixed with tomato sauce, All Gold if we had money, KFC sachets if we didn’t. This concoction turned a simple grilled cheese into something I swore was gourmet, and my friends bought into it. It was simple, but it was mine.

I smeared that combination onto bread, topped it with pre sliced cheese and grilled it in a snackwich maker, then sprinkled some Ina Paarman’s Lemon and Garlic salt over the top. (A dear friend’s mom taught me this one morning when I woke up hungover after a concert.) Eventually I was priced out of the pre sliced cheese and started using what is lovingly known as pasteurized prepared cheese product. It was the color of failing a drug test and tasted like someone turned cheese flavoring into a dairy solid. But this opened the floodgates and my infamous one pot soy mince and pasta with cheese was born.

I never once felt I was not on top of the world during those days. The beauty of independence in its initial stages is that you don’t know that you are not doing well, because you are. Not having something has never felt like a punishment to me. I simply got on with what I had. Perhaps I was a Babushka in my previous life.

You see, food at this point was not sustenance. We were young and immortal. It was performance. We ate because we were allowed to eat whatever we wanted, and when you start playing house to learn how to live, the ghosts of your childhood bring you ideas that turn into legacy.

By the time I was at college, with my first apartment behind me, I found myself diving into a whole new world of food. It was a structured world of culinary techniques and traditions, one that seemed to stand in stark contrast to the kitchen chaos I grew up with.

Later, I studied the mother sauces, and I couldn’t help but think of my mother adding mayonnaise to everything. Potato salad, sandwiches, even microwaved frozen veggies, always wrapped up in cling film. The mother sauces are the backbone of French cuisine, and mastering them opens endless possibilities for creating daughter sauces. Mayonnaise is a mother sauce. From that humble beginning, I’ve learned countless variations. An emulsion layers oil into water. Growing up is a similar process, layering memory, experience, and expectation. If you’re lucky, someone will teach you how to blend in a bit of tomato sauce, expanding your skills and turning life itself into a mother sauce. And from there, you can guide the people around you into new directions. People are the foundation. Food is the glue.

Today I don’t really keep mayonnaise in my apartment anymore, but I’ll never say no to it when I’m out. Part of growing up is letting go. Besides, I’m busy figuring out sawsawan and ssamjang.