The first processed food available in Iceland was Gunnar’s mayonnaise, first produced in 1960. As recipes in Icelandic cookbooks said you could make mayo with clean paraffin if you were out of cooking oil I feel confident saying it was a vast improvement despite having yet to try the stuff, and Iceland went wild for it. My boss says it was in everything, and that mayonnaise cake was particularly popular at confirmations. I gather mayonnaise cake is a giant club sandwich, filled with mayo & salad, covered in mayo ‘icing’ which then has piped mayo decorations on top.
I’d describe myself as wildly pro mayonnaise, but this is too much. I think my face betrayed my feelings, because my boss pointed out he wasn’t even born until 1989.
Gunnar, apparently, thought it would be nice to have some international recognition, and decided to break the world record for biggest mayonnaise jar. He commissioned a giant tub, but was very surprised to get a letter from the Guinness Book of World Records, saying that it didn’t count unless he actually put mayonnaise in it. Gunnar thought this was extremely wasteful, and that being big in Iceland was enough after all.
Apparently the mayo jar that could have been the biggest in the world is on a roundabout in Hafnarfjörður, my boss’s home town. I’m considerably more impressed than he is.
Adventures in Arabic 