Cold Emulsified Egg Yolk Sauces

Mayonnaise and its Variations Our much used mayonnaise is the prototype or “mother” of the cold, stable emulsion sauces. It has existed from great antiquity, for if one reads the book of Apicius, enough sauces contain eggs and oil in their list of ingredients that they could have been prepared pretty much as we prepare mayonnaise nowadays. In the most recent French book on food history by Maguelonne Toussaint Samat, the author wonders whether mayonnaise might have started as moieulnoise, from the old French word moieulx meaning egg yolks; others support the Port Mahon theory because the sauce would have been served after the battle of Port Mahon in 1756. In a word, no one knows for sure.