All our cooking is based on tradition and environment. Those dishes your mom made always bring back memories and for many chefs they become the basis for new ideas and preparations. My mother loved mayonnaise, she put it on everything. When I learned to make aioli at my first kitchen job, I came home and taught her, the world could have ended for all she cared, she was in love. Aioli, or mayo, always reminds me of my mom, weird, huh?