The Japanese Love Mayonnaise

I’ve learned a few things about the Japanese during my time here. They generally think that every foreigner is tall and blonde even if we’re 5’5″ with dark hair. Japanese companies love to individually wrap things, and there are usually at least three layers of meticulously designed wrapping between you and that cookie you’d like to eat. They love concrete, and think nothing of creating parks where pristine concrete comes right up to where the trees are…or of covering random mountainsides “just in case” there might be a landslide someday. They’re also the biggest fans of mayonnaise in the world, consuming 1.8 kg (4 lbs) of the stuff per person per year. Japanese put mayo on salads, sushi, on traditional foods like takoyaki or okonomiyaki…and one of the most popular kinds of pizza is corn and mayonnaise (I swear I am not making this up). The Japanese word for someone who really loves mayonnaise is mayoler, and it’s not uncommon for characters to have an unnatural love of the stuff as a personality quirk in anime, like Kotetsu from Tiger and Bunny or Tsukasa from Lucky Star. As in Europe, the Japanese often eat French fries with mayonnaise, or both ketchup and mayonnaise together, dipped randomly. If you’re curious about Japanese mayonnaise, naturally we have some on the site for you.

The Japanese are great lovers of mayonnaise.