Before departing this thread, I do want to clear up the confusion about aioli and mayonnaise. They are not the same (and aioli is not Italian), and surely some people are interested. Any google search asking “What is the difference between aioli and mayonnaise?” will turn up dozens of helpful hits. Here is one – and while people can pick over this phrase or that to try to prove that there really isn’t any difference, there actually is, historically and today:
http://www.culinate.com/columns/front_burner/aioli_versus_mayonnaise
The absence of mayonnaise and mayonnaise type condiments overall in Italian cooking is striking, given the high popularity of mayonnaise and sauces like it in other European countries. Italy is odd this way. It is worth noting, and worth knowing that if you go to France or Spain and try to persuade them that aioli is Italian, you will face quite a “didactic” lecture. People tend to care about these hair-splitting differences in Europe.
I am not quite used to waking up in the morning to see it implied I am lying about something I am not lying about at all. I have bitten into sandwiches in Italy sold in train station vending machines that have mayonnaise in them. I have seen it the supermarkets and had dabs of it served free to me in humdrum bars during the cocktail hours. There are no doubt Michelin star restaurants in Italy using mayo (with yuzu?). But places that take care about traditional regional cooking in Italy have nothing to do with mayonnaise, and even in Piemonte, where one might be tempted to identify a taste as mayonnaise, the correct answer is usually more complicated than that.
I am certain some people care about these distinctions, just as much as I care about not finding mayonnaise in guacamole!
