If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it …well, more than once: “What’s an aioli?” Anyone familiar with American Idol has to ask themselves: “How would Pickler answer that?”

The standard waitperson response is: “It’s garlic mayo.” That isn’t to say that aioli isn’t garlic mayonnaise, but to simply leave it at that would do it a great disservice.

Aioli is a rich, thick emulsion of egg yolk, virgin olive oil, and fresh garlic. It is a national treasure (practically) in Provençe, France, where it is called le beurre Provençal. Even the preparation of this holy condiment is a ritual.

Traditionally, the garlic is mashed in large mortars, fresh egg yolks added and then the new crop olive oil added drop by drop while whisking madly, until the oil and egg begin to meld and hold in a golden, garlicky, glossy sauce that is the dip for crab cakes, raw oysters, and artichokes. The only seasoning needed is a little sea salt and fresh ground white pepper plus a little lemon juice. To make this truly authentic, this must all take place on a 300-year old wooden table, draped in an equally old linen table cloth, in the middle of an olive grove or the courtyard of a 500-year old French villa.

The word “aioli” comes from the French ail (garlic) and oli (a dialect for oil). In Larousse, I found this great quote: “Aioli epitomizes the heat, the power, and the joy of the Provençal sun, but it has another virtue—it drives away flies.” So that’s the secret to those romantic scenes of the always-attractive families eating in fields!

I don’t remember when I first heard about the Grand Aioli, but I thought it simply meant this heavenly sauce. A Grand Aioli is much more than that. It is a feast made from the fresh catch of the day and the riches of the fields, poached, chilled, and served with crusty farm-house bread and aioli. In Provençe, a platter like this would contain poached fresh white fish or salt cod, artichokes, potatoes, beets, carrots, green beans, cauliflower, hard-boiled eggs, snails (escargot?), and garbanzo beans. I’m not clear here on why the garbanzo beans, but that’s what my magazines and books tell me.  

So that is aioli in la-la land. In our real world, the waiter’s answer about aioli is probably closer to the truth. It likely came from a 20 litre pail of “real” mayonnaise, seasoned with lemon and pre-crushed garlic from a 1 litre jar. Very few people—although I admit I did it once—actually have the time or patience to make a real aioli. The closest most of us come to making aioli is when we make a Caesar dressing from scratch. A quick look in any current food magazine or cookbook will give recipes for aioli as simply adding crushed garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper to bottled mayonnaise. And then there are the many versions of aioli: Tapenade-rosemary aioli; Sherry aioli; Roasted pepper-aioli; and even, Orange aioli. These all begin with store-bought mayo; some don’t even have garlic! I suppose aioli sounds more lah-di-dah than mayo.

One reason that food services might consider opting for prepared mayo for their aioli is that making a homemade mayo, even using a blender, is an art. If the oil is added too quickly, or too much oil is added, the sauce will break. Other factors like the temperature of the ingredients—they should all be at the same temperature, preferably room temperature—and even, according to Joy of Cooking, the ambient humidity and barometric pressure are to be considered. The author swears that if there is a thunderstorm happening, don’t even think about trying to make mayonnaise. I’d like to experiment with that one.

The more serious concern is that health agencies are not excited about people eating raw eggs, or even eggs that have been gentled cooked, such as those in meringue or the coddled eggs of a Caesar salad.

Should we be eating raw eggs at all? Should we be eating real Caesar dressing, eggnog, meringue, mousse, or hollandaise sauce? Or should we be relying on pasteurized commercial egg products that mock the real thing.

If you believe the food inspections agencies, especially American, they will say an unqualified, “NO!”

It used to be sufficient to take care that the shell, once considered to carry the salmonella bacteria, didn’t come in contact with the inside egg. So nix the one-handed egg cracking routine. But it is now known that salmonella can get inside the egg before it is even formed. There has been development in the method of pasteurizing eggs while still in the shell, but that is still not widely available.

This means that the only sure way to not contract salmonella from an egg is to cook it thoroughly. This means no more runny bennies.

There is a high risk group who should never consume raw eggs. This group includes the elderly, the very young, immuno-compromised, and pregnant women.

For the rest of us, if we wish to eat raw eggs, we should make sure to purchase Grade A eggs. Cleanliness and soundness of shell are both considered when grading eggs. When buying from a farmer, we should only buy from a farmer we know with a good reputation. (That would be all the local, Gabriola producers!)

Broken shelled eggs or even cracked ones should be discarded and eggs should be stored away in the fridge directly on getting home.

I struggled, at this point, with whether I should be writing about aioli at all! I suppose I have a rather subjective view on eating raw egg:  I won’t’ eat cookie dough (Mom told me it would give me worms) or runny eggs, but have no problem with Caesar salad or aioli.

I choose to believe that garlic keeps away more than just flies.