H45. Belze Majoneis. Utrecht, September 2011. € 2,50 for 330 ml
True Mayonnaise is under heavy siege these
day, dear reader! But, from time to time, there is also Good News on the horizon,
even in this our wayward age, utterly beset by vile chemical sauces and their
Manichaean counterparts: health 'mayonnaises', of low calories, no egg and 60 % macro-biological oil.
One such happy novelty, a truly remarkable
product, came my way through the good offices of my friend Anna Garssen from
Utrecht, the Netherlands. It is called ‘Belze
Majoneis’ (which simply means ‘Belgian Mayonnaise’ in the local dialect of
the Dutch province of Zeeland) and is a rare surviving instance of an honest, traditional
production process.
Belze Majoneis is an artisanal Dodo in this our age of industrial corruption, a work of
love by a true idealist, Mr Ton Schroers, who started manufacturing home-made
mayo out of his mama’s kitchen some five decades ago when only 13. He made a
good product for a fair price, and he flourished. Soon he diversified, adding
mustards to his Mayos and exotic recipes to his cookbook. Still his business
flourished, and so he decided to expand. He expanded his Zierikzee enterprise –
called Ton’s Mosterd - to the
shocking size of himself and three employees. And stopped there. With those
modest means, he could manage everything he wanted to do. And what he did was
impressive…
Mr Schroers designed no fewer than 160
different varieties of mustard, for all kinds, classes and tastes of customers:
men, women, the young, the old, the overly sensitive, the allergic, the robust…
you name it! Meanwhile he kept refining his mastery of Mayonnaise making, until
he hit upon this extraordinary product, meant to equal any home-made
mayonnaise, based on time-honoured Belgian criteria. (1)
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| The artisanal jar |
And this sauce is certainly a gem! Although
its colour is somewhat pale and its texture more liquid than one would prefer –
the inevitable consequences of the rigorous avoidance of all sugars and
chemical additions – the taste is a veritable godsend, an exercise in pure harmony
between the salty, the sour, the creamy and the sweet which only compares with
a Mozart concierto. Note, however,
that it needs to breath for a day or so after opening, so as to bring out its
deepest flavours and shed the dormant bitter undertone it possesses at first. After
that you could not find a better sauce for dishes which demand strong flavours
such as Oeuf Mayonnaise or the
traditional Dutch and Belgian French
Fries with Mayonnaise.
As for disadvantages I see only two: first of
all it is near impossible to find. Only a tiny handful of shops, and a modest
supermarket chain called Jumbo, offer this brand for sale, and you have to be
in the Netherlands to buy it.
 |
| The back label |
Secondly, I think the label could do with a
little less information. Yes, we do like to know that the eggs are free range, that
the mustard seeds are ecologically grown on a tiny island off the Dutch coast, and
that all the energy is generated by solar panels. But stuffing both front and
back labels with dense shovelfuls of information, until they read like a Who’s Who? and a What’s What? of New Age food processing is, frankly, a little more
than the customer desires.
Lastly, there is the matter of price. Belze Majoneis is not cheap. But it is worth every penny. And who needs
savings in the bank if you can live a happy, happy life, accompanied by a
worthwhile Mayo, I ask!?
So: whoever has the chance: take a trip to
Holland, skip the silly windmills and the sordid tulips, and find yourself a
jar of an exceptional sauce instead. And those of you who are not so lucky as
to be able to travel, check out Ton’s Mosterd’s website here for a peek into
the workings of a proud artisanal company.
(1) 'Ton’s Mosterd' also makes Dutch Mayonnaise (label above) and a Spanish
variant, which essentially is Garlic Mayonnaise.
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