THE CULTURAL CHAMELEON

If there’s one sauce capable of beating ketchup as the world’s most popular, it must be mayo. It’s found in virtually any country on earth, served in both fast food eateries and white-tablecloth restaurants. Mayonnaise is often believed to have originated in France, but it’s in fact more likely to have originated in the port town of Mahon, capital of Menorca, in Spain’s Balearic Islands. According to a 19th-century French dictionary by scholar Émile Littré, it was born there as “Mahonnaise”, at a time when the French, Spanish and British empires were fighting over the dominion of the archipelago.

Like mayo, much of Menorcan culture and history shows signs of the island’s colonial past. The port of Mahon is strategically positioned in the Mediterranean, which makes