The Metaphysics of Mayonnaise

I was scrounging around looking for something I could put on my overcooked hot dog (note to self: get that damn microwave fixed, it's caught fire three times in the last two days), and reached past the ketchup, mustard, relish, onions, and Jesus' Official Hot Dog Sauce for the finest condiment known to mankind: mayonnaise. I slathered about four or five tablespoons' worth onto the small, stale bun then began to close the mayonnaise jar when something on the label caught my eye. In between the words "Hellmann's" and "mayonnaise," which had been printed in the same font, was the italicized, yellow-colored word "REAL."

Hmm, I wondered. Hellmann's REAL Mayonnaise. Just what is it that makes this particular mayonnaise more 'real' than other kinds? What is "real," anyway?

Realizing that there are experts on what's "real" and what's not, I immediately strapped on my jet-pack and rocketed over to Oxford's department of philosophy for answers. After landing and plucking the feathers remaining in my teeth from that goose I collided with I asked Regent Professor Edward William Harry Tottington Victoria Wellingtonkingshire IV, esq. for an answer to this query, which burned through my head like a poorly-tiled space shuttle.

"Professor," I screamed, "Just what makes mayonnaise 'real?'"

He stifled an aneurysm brought on by the incredible intellectual weight of this question, then replied, "Well, Son, there are many possible answers."

Hmm, he called me Son, I thought. I hadn't recognized the paternal link but hey, this guy's a Professor; he must know what he's talking about.

"What are they, Dad?" I replied.

"It depends on which school of thought you choose to pursue. After all, as Descartes said, 'I eat mayonnaise, therefore I am,' thus explaining mayonnaise's importance in French cuisine and why the French are assholes, but conversely one might take the Nietzschean approach of 'The only true stable emulsion of vegetable oil and egg yolk died on the Cross.'"

Just then the doors to the hall burst open and several heavily armed men surrounded us. "Don't move! You're surrounded by the Secret Sauce police!"

"My god, I thought you people were a myth purported by Tabasco as a fear campaign against benign sandwich toppings!" Wellingtonkingshire squealed in terror, violently shitting his pants.

"Our existence has been kept secret by all the manufacturers of spicy sauces. How else would we keep people hot under the collar?"

An idea hit me like a glob of mustard plopping on a clean t-shirt. "Professor! Hold on to me!" Wellingtonkingshire complied, and I released all of the fuel-synthesized mayo from my jet pack and dropped the cigar that Wellingtonkingshire had most conveniently been smoking onto the ground, incinerating the Secret Sauce agents and the whole of the Oxford campus.

Wellingtonkingshire and I were married two weeks later and, using the royalties given us as spokesmen for Hellmann's, bought a chateau in Nice where scantily-clad Greek boys feed us grapes covered in mayonnaise. One day, the ghost of Socrates stopped by, and we asked him "Socrates, just what makes Hellmann's mayonnaise 'real?'"

He sampled some mayonnaise, pondered for a second, and replied "They make it with eggs instead of margarine-based products. Also, it's fuckin' tasty, man."