In all corners of the world, small independent food zines spring up which defy the laws of glossies, marketing and public demand. They have one thing in common: the pure joy of working with letters, images, paper and stories. These magazines, with illustrious names like Put A Egg On It, are paragons for gentleman-writer Ronald de Nijs and punk writer Marjan Ippel.
Part of a page in food folly MBM
Two years ago they decided to make an indie mag too. And, just like their sources of inspiration, with a twist of their own. The kitchen table and the café gave birth to the English/Dutch mag My Beautiful Mayonnaise, an experimental food folly about food in art, literature, fashion and science. Everything fell into place when designer Natasha Tastachova and translator Vivien Cook came on board. Some budding ideas made it to the final round, others gave way to newer ones. The result is the first edition of My Beautiful Mayonnaise.
The makers chose to stick close to home and to themselves for the premiere. They alternate food memoirs with a story about the cookery of French author Marguerite Duras, the diary of a teenager, rituals, the regular, a nostalgist in his 1930’s kitchen and a host of other things. And, not surprisingly, mayonnaise grabs the spotlight. Against the grain. Just like a folly – an equally useless as splendid building in many an eighteenth-century garden.
It’s all on paper. Although none of us can last an hour without internet, nothing beats the tactile sensation of real paper. For us it’s the cherry on the cake, the mayonnaise on the chips.
My Beautiful Mayonnaise is published in two languages (Dutch and English) and is distributed via selected book shops, kiosks, gift shops and through the food and beverage sector as well as via our web shop. The full-colour magazine costs 5 euro.