Happy Birthday, Dear Mayo -- We hold you dear [audio 4min]

Without Gen. Louis-Francois-Armand du Plessy, Duc de Richelieu, we might not have tuna salad. Or cole slaw. Or a proper BLT. All share a common element: mayonnaise. And while theories on the origins of mayo differ, the most common has the condiment celebrating its 250th birthday this summer. After Richelieu's troops took the island of Minorca from the British in June 1756, his personal chef celebrated by creating a feast -- and a new sauce named for Richelieu's point of attack: the island port of Mahon. But mayonnaise didn't become a staple of the American diet until after a German immigrant named Richard Hellman started bottling his wife's mayonnaise in 1912.