The Charivari - the salad is actually called that and probably has nothing to do with the warlock from Jonathan Stroud's 'Skulduggery Pleasant' - is the French version of potato salad and mixes the potato with apples, pears, mushrooms and beet as well as pickled cucumbers, the dressing is made from mayonnaise. The version with mayonnaise is known beyond Germany in Silesia and Bohemia, in the Rhineland gherkins or apples are added, in Brandenburg it may also be radishes. The first version can be found in variations (a decoction of meat broth, vinegar, oil and spices) also in Austria to Croatia, sometimes the salad is served even still warm. In Germany alone, there are already two major movements: While in the southwest potato salad is usually marinated with a clear, vinegar-based sauce, in other areas a mayonnaise-based sauce is used, often mixed with yogurt. There are, of course, very different recipes for potato salad all over the world. As with katsudon, mayonnaise is also used as a creamy mild sauce (see ).

Katsu-sando (カツサンド) are topped with a Japanese version of cutlet, usually cut into strips and served on a bowl of rice (katsudon, カツ丼). Tamago-Sando (卵サンド) carry a filling of half-cooked egg, mixed with mayonnaise and seasoned. Sando can also be 'topped' with potato salad (more on that later) or egg salad. Mayonnaise is essential because it performs the same function as butter on bread in Germany: it fixes the topping.īut that's not all. Sandwiches, known as sando (サンド) for short, consist of a soft slice of white bread modeled on American sandwich toast, which can be spread with mayonnaise (instead of butter) and topped with lettuce, ham, cheese, fish, egg or other ingredients. However, they don't have much in common with the butter sandwiches or sandwiches from the bakery that are familiar in Germany. The alternative to the onigiri already discussed are sandwiches. If you are hungry on the road in Japan, you either get a bento or a snack in a konbini. Shokuhin Kogyo has been called Kewpie Corporation since 1957, in order to build extensively on the success of its own product. Kewpie mayonnaise now comes in many different varieties and is also available in Europe. The doll for the logo comes from Ohrdruf in Thuringia (cf.īy the way, it didn't stop at just one mayonnaise. The cute little baroque angel is none other than the god of love from Roman mythology. And that's where the name of the mayonnaise comes from: Kewpie is the short derivation of the English word 'cupid', meaning a cupid. The Kewpie Mayonnaise logo and mascot was not a purely Japanese thing, but - like mayonnaise itself - a fad adapted from the West (see ).Īccording to the slogan, little Cupid, a fat baby, is supposed to guarantee 'love on the dinner table. She called the figure Kewpie, and the illustrations were soon used to design dolls. She had designed a little naked boy, chubby-cheeked, who had already been adopted early on by Colgate, Kellog's and other companies. The company took advantage of Rose O'Neill's designs, which had been popular internationally since the 1940s. And now we'll get into the details, but in order.Įarly advertising for mayonnaise jumped on an international rolling advertising bandwagon. But no, that doesn't mean that people in Japan don't have their own idea of potato salad - just like mayonnaise.

And yes, potato salad is also a German dish. Yes, Japanese mayonnaise is different and has nothing in common with the reduced-fat light products for figure-regenerating salads from German supermarkets except the name.

Wait a minute - is it different? And isn't potato salad a quintessentially German dish? Japan - who in Germany doesn't commonly think of Sushi, healthy food, long life, finest ingredients and maybe still Soy sauce and miso paste? Some people will be surprised to learn that Japan is a country that nowadays is almost unthinkable without mayonnaise of all things!įact: Without mayonnaise, okonomiyaki (お好み焼き), yakisoba (焼きそば), takoyaki (たこ焼き), katsu-sando (カツサンド), onigiri (おにぎり) and potato salad (ポテサラ), all typical Japanese dishes, are completely unthinkable.Īnd it can't be just any mayonnaise, it has to be Japanese mayonnaise.

Washoku beyond sushi