More than mayo: Why Duke’s is beloved — an obsession, even — throughout the Carolinas
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Border Battle
The North Carolina Tar Heels and the South Carolina Gamecocks are facing off on the football field for the Duke’s Mayo Classic. While it is a big game for both teams, it encompasses so much more than just football. Here’s what this border battle means for both states, each team and the City of Charlotte.
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When Southerners say “Give me Duke’s or give me death” what they mean is “Bless your heart for using Hellmann’s.”
The smear of the South inspires a passion that speaks to something more than just mayo. The brand is mentioned by name on menus like a prized pork breed. It hangs in neon on the walls of restaurants. Some fans have the iconic yellow-lidded Duke’s Mayo jar tattooed on their bodies.
In the last few years, Duke’s Mayo has gone from simply the jar your mother and grandmother insisted on to something wholly and passionately embraced by chef and foodie culture.
“We love Duke’s mayo,” said chef Jake Wood, owner of Lawrence Barbecue and Leroy’s Tacos. “We won’t use anything else. (It’s on the menu) because we want people to know what we’re using. But also we’re playing into the popularity — there’s a sense that using anything but Duke’s is sacrilege.”
In perhaps the greatest escalation of mayo loyalty, last year a Richmond tattoo shop offered free tattoos of the Duke’s jar paid for by the brand. According to a story in Food & Wine, 70 people got the tattoos through that promotion and more than 1,000 people signed up for a waitlist.
Recently, BJ Barham, frontman for Raleigh-based band American Aquarium, posted a photo of his own Duke’s mayo tattoo — a gilded dagger through the lid of the jar. Then, this week he posted a photo of the Duke’s pool floatie shimmering in the water.
“Thanks for the care package Duke’s Mayo,” Barham wrote. “The love is mutual.”
Wood doesn’t have a Duke’s tattoo, but he does have one of the Morton’s salt logo, one that makes him think of the box sitting in his family’s cabinet seemingly for years, staying the same while everything else continued to change.
Wood said Duke’s makes him feel the same way, a brand that’s connected to the place where he’s from and to visits to his grandparents’ house.
“It’s that iconic brand and I think before my time it was just a hyper-southern brand — you could only find it within South and North Carolina and a couple other states,” Wood said. “Duke’s is a great product. We feel proud to use it, but it’s also a nostalgic thing. It feels like going back to more of a simple world. You feel like a child watching cartoons on Saturday.”
Duke’s: Ask for it by name
When people talk about making the July or August tomato sandwich, it’s a recipe of simplicity and exactitude. There’s bread — purists say white bread, others say sourdough — and thick slices of ripe tomatoes that have been salted and peppered. And Duke’s mayonnaise, mentioned by name in reputable establishments.
One such establishment is Raleigh’s (ish) Delicatessen, where sandwich expert Matt Fern serves his seasonal tomato sandwich in a bowl, because a perfect tomato sandwich is a messy affair.
Fern, though, is not a blindly Duke’s loyalist.
“I’m an equal opportunity mayonnaise employer,” Fern said. “We put Duke’s on the right thing.”
Like that tomato sandwich, which Fern lists by name.
“I think it’s the only one to use with tomato sandwiches,” Fern said. “Kewpie’s too rich, Hellmann’s is too sweet. It has that right balance of sweetness, acidity and salt.”
Joe Schwartz, who by day is the chef of Saxapahaw General Store and is working on the upcoming Max Jr’s Links & Drinks, is one of those Duke’s fanatics and sees a mayo tattoo in his future.
Duke’s, he said, is a mayo that represents the South, that was invented in a Southern State and stars in Southern dishes, adding creaminess to pimento cheese, tanging up deviled eggs and completing the height of the season tomato sandwich.
“It’s regional, you get a bit of pride knowing it’s a different mayo than they use everywhere else,” Schwartz said. “What Old Bay is to Maryland, Duke’s is to the South.”
But cultural phenomenons tend to build on themselves and Duke’s has certainly seized its moment. The brand’s website is stocked with its mayo varieties, but also a jar-shapped pool float, bright red tank tops declaring “Hot tomato summer,” and a bumper sticker that says “My other car is a BLT.”
Schwartz, who has that bumper sticker, said Duke’s is a mayo connected to its people.
“I don’t think Hellmann’s would make a pool float and people would buy it,” Schwartz said. “(Duke’s is) not just a product, it’s a statement of regional pride. Plus all the others are bland.”
This story was originally published August 30, 2023 at 11:00 AM with the headline "More than mayo: Why Duke’s is beloved — an obsession, even — throughout the Carolinas."
