This SC city now has its own Duke’s Mayo-centric cookbook. Here’s how to get a copy

VisitGreenvilleSC is following up its Eugenia Duke Day tour of restaurants featuring Duke’s Mayonnaise with a cookbook — Eugenia Duke’s Unofficial Mayo Guide Cookbook.

It includes recipes crafted by Greenville area chefs using the iconic Duke condiment, from appetizers such as Smoked Carolina Fish Dip from Jones Oyster Co. to main courses, think Duke’s Mayo Fried Chicken from Roost.

Eugenia Duke started her business by selling sandwiches made with her homemade mayonnaise in 1917 at Camp Sevier in Greenville. Her egg salad, chicken salad and pimento cheese sandwiches were also a hit for society matrons eating at the Otteray Hotel in downtown Greenville.

The sandwiches were good, but what set them apart was her mayonnaise, people said.

Southern Living describes the mayonnaise as rich and creamy due to a higher ratio of egg yolks than most other commercial mayos.

But the real zing is from cider vinegar.

“Its texture is thicker and almost custard-like instead of simply slick or gelatinous,” Southern Living said.

Duke opened a manufacturing plant in a former coach factory paint shop in downtown Greenville in 1922, bought a car and sold her mayonnaise all over the South wearing her signature pearls and big hats.

The mayonnaise’s popularity outstripped her ability to produce it by 1929. She sold to the C.F. Sauer Co., which makes it still in a factory in Mauldin.

Earlier this year, Sauer Brands, previously owned by Falfurrias Capital Partners, sold its company to Boston-based private equity firm Advent International.

After selling to Sauer, Duke and her husband moved to California to be closer to their daughter, who had married a soldier from Los Angeles. There she started another company, Duchess Sandwich Co.

Duke died in 1968 and is buried in Oakland, California.

The Greenville Visitor’s Bureau is pre-selling the cookbook now and will ship it in mid-October.

If you’re on the fence about buying it, here’s some extra enticement. There are two recipes included from Soby’s New South Cuisine, which is credited with ushering in the resurgence of downtown Greenville’s restaurant scene.

Carl Sobocinski opened Soby’s in 1997 in a downtown with little resemblance to what it is today. Department stores had fled to malls, restaurants largely catered to daytime office workers. Streets emptied as dark fell.

He took the former Cancellation Shoe store and turned it into a brick-lined two-floor restaurant with an outdoor patio. Earlier this year, Soby’s received five Wine Spectator Awards of Excellence and 22 Best of Awards.

Soby’s recipe for crab cakes, one of four dishes that have never been removed from the menu (also shrimp and grits, fried green tomatoes and jalapeno pimento cheese), is included in the cookbook as well as its recipe for Duke’s Chocolate Cake.

This story was originally published September 27, 2025 at 6:00 AM.