Adapting to a country is adapting to its gastronomic culture. One might think that in a globalized world, it is enough to buy the same brands of products that one is used to consuming in their native country, but this is not the case. A mayonnaise bought in Italy under a specific brand is not the same as the mayonnaise of that same brand bought in Spain. Because?
One might think that this or that product tastes different because the recipes in which it is included are, de facto, different: it is not the same to add commercial crushed tomato to an Italian stir-fry (onion, celery and carrot) to the base of a Spanish sofrito, so the result it offers will be different. Issues such as ambient temperature and humidity, the novel context in which that particular product is tested, among others, could even be assessed.
However, there are products that really change their recipe between countries. It is enough to compare the list of ingredients of both mayonnaises, in this case, from the hundred-year-old Dutch brand Calvé (today the Unilever group):
–In Spanish mayonnaise: Water, sunflower oil (40%), white wine vinegar (5.6%), egg yolk (3.2%), modified starch, wheat starch, sugar, salt, mineral salt potassium, concentrated lemon juice, thickener (guar gum), aromas.
–In Italian mayonnaise: 70% vegetable oil (sunflower and soy), water, white wine vinegar, 5% pasteurized egg yolk, salt, modified starch, emulsifier (xanthan gum), concentrated lemon juice, aromas.
As can be seen, the percentages of vegetable oil and egg yolk vary considerably, which affects the organoleptic perception of the recipe. Giuseppe La Porta, sommelier at Bodega Solera, which will open next June, detects big differences in this and other brands of mayonnaise. “Compared to commercial Italian mayonnaises, Spanish mayonnaises have nothing to do with it. They look like a completely different product, even though they are from the same brand. For example, they all have an important difference at first glance: while the Italian ones have an intense yellow color, the Spanish ones have a rather pale appearance. As far as flavor is concerned, the Italian ones have a much more citric component, something that helps to soften the fatty texture of the mayonnaise a bit, and that does not happen in the Spanish ones, which are more cloying”.
For Mario Sánchez, a food technologist and popularizer, this can happen with any product that has a massive reach throughout the world. “Variations in the recipe of a product from the same brand are due to different factors. On the one hand, there are the possible cultural gastronomic preferences of each country in relation to that recipe. Perhaps in one place the predominance of fat, salt or sugar is prioritized, and in other places it is not. Markets are variable because gastronomic cultures also vary and manufacturing companies have the right data under their belt to target exactly that particular audience.
On the other hand, explains Sánchez, logistical issues also come into play. “Depending on the country, both the ingredients and the product itself may be manufactured by different operators. This can also happen within the same country, and it happens especially in the case of private brands, which many manufacturers produce for supermarkets. It is very probable that a potato omelette from the same white brand has a different flavor in Barcelona than in Santiago de Compostela. The reason: they are two different manufacturers. In addition, the growing concern for sustainability causes companies to source ingredients or products from nearby manufacturers, with which the recipe of a certain product can undergo different variations.
Without a doubt, as the writer and professor of Psychology, Charles Spencer, stated in Gastrophysics (Paidós, 2017), "we all live in very different taste worlds." This is the case both for genetic reasons (this phobia of coriander is explained precisely by this) and for the fact that taste is a sense affected by all the others, be it sight, touch, hearing and, of course, hearing. smell. And, also, because on many occasions the mayonnaise that we eat in Europe is the same and it is not the same.
