Mayonnaise is said to be the invention of the chef of the Duc de Richelieu: in 1756. While the Duc was defeating the British at Port Mahon on Mallorca, his chef was creating a victory feast that included a sauce made of cream and eggs. The chef named it " Mahonnaise" in honour of the Duc's victory.

Camilo José Cela, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote:

"it should be possible to demonstrate documentally that it was Richelieu himself who christened it with the name of "mahonesa". For, doubtless, in some attic belonging to a Menorcan family - if the damp has not consumed it or the rats devoured it - there lies a letter from the Duc, a man much given to the pleasures of the table and the bed, who already an octogenarian and never having shown any repugnance for bed nor board, relapsed into matrimony for the third time: the letter letter would be addressed to that amorous grandmother - there is one in all the best families - and in the paragraph which interests us would say,.... and if it were possible for me to ever forget you, madame, this delicate sauce with which you were wont to gladden my palate would ensure my remembrance of you, and from this moment, I should tell you that because of the impossibility of bearing your name, I will call it mayonnaise."