Mustard - English, French or American?

“Almost anything is edible with a dab of French mustard on it.” Nigel Slater

Dibbler had worked out that with enough fried onions and mustard people would eat anything. Terry Pratchett

I have actually done mustard before - but not here. I may have mentioned that every now and then I make cookery books for my children, and a few years ago I did one on 7 ingredients that I could not do without. Well it was actually 7 ingredients more as I had already done one volume. Anyway this volume featured mustard, so I looked it up and find that I had pretty much covered the entire subject there. I was about to not bother, and then I thought that only they have seen it really. So here is a slightly different and much reduced version of my former treatise on mustard. I've pinched a few things from it.

"In Germany a bride is advised to sew mustard seeds into the hem of her wedding dress to assure her dominance of the household."

"In Denmark and India they think spreading mustard seeds around a house will keep out evil spirits."

I guess the first thing to say is that there are many different kinds of mustard. An almost infinite variety of the manufactured type because one can add an ever-expanding range of flavours to the basic mustard - of which there are three. Three different plants and three different countries that manufacture a product called mustard. There is white, brown and black mustard and English, French and American styles of mustard. The Indians and other Asians also use mustard lavishly - seeds and leaves - and it features in some spice mixes - such as panch phora but I don't think they make a condiment of it. They just use the seeds and the leaves. I personally think of English as hot, French as mild but sort of musty and American as sweetish. But I do stress that these are my own personal opinions.

"I had forgotten what mustard fields looked like... Sheet upon sheet of blazing yellow, half way between sulphur and celandine, with hot golden sunshine pouring down upon them out of a dazzling June sky. It thrilled me like music." Monica Baldwin

It's a pretty plant with bright yellow flowers and dark green leaves. The leaves, incidentally, can also be eaten and are a favourite thing in India. I'm pretty certain that you can buy them fairly easily now in Asian shops and at markets.

But it's the seeds from which we make the mustard. And you can make your own. Jamie Oliver in his Jamie's Great Britain book gives several different recipes and two of them are featured on his website. So have a look and experiment with different vinegars, different spices and herbs or different sweeteners. And Phil Daoust of The Guardian, writes a useful article on the general things you need to know if you are going to make your own. And ditto for Yotam Ottolenghi.

I had a recipe that I used long ago. I have no idea where I got it from but for what it's worth here it is. It made a pretty good mustard. I seem to remember it started out runny and thickened up over time.

1 cup mustard seeds

1/10 cup black peppercorns

Grind and mix.

Add 1 cup olive oil, 1 cup red wine, 1 cup wine vinegar, 1/10 cup salt.

Mix well and store in earthenware or sterilised jam jar.

And whilst we are still on the raw plant as it were. What about mustard and cress? Do children still grow it in little dishes of wet cotton wool, or blotting paper (whatever happened to that?), or tissues? Jane Grigson preferred it to all of the other sprouty kind of things that you can now get to flavour your healthy salads and sandwiches. We just had it in sandwiches - on its own. Unadorned. And loved it. Helped I supposed by the fact that we had grown it ourselves. So satisfying. You sow the seed on the cotton wool, keep it moist and hey presto it grows. The mustard is peppery and the cress just grassy I suppose.

It has also long had a medicinal use for just about everything:

"the drowsy forgetful evil, to use it both inwardly and outwardly, to rub the nostrils, forehead and temples, to warm and quicken the spirits . . . the decoction of the seeds ... resists the malignity of mushrooms.... Being chewed in the mouth it oftentimes helps the tooth-ache. It is also used to help the falling off the hair. The seed bruised, mixed with honey, and applied, or made up with wax, takes away the marks and black and blue spots of bruises or the like . . . it helps also the crick in the neck...." Nicholas Culpepper (on black mustard) (1649)

I particularly like the fact that it helps the crick in the neck. How did they get a crick in the neck in those days? They didn't sit at computers all day.

I don't know that we think of it as being quite so effective these days, but it still persists as a poultice and as something you breathe in for a stuffed nose. A bit folkloric though. Some people seem to think that it has anti-cancer benefits. Yet to be proven I think.

"Perhaps what I like most about mustard is that whether it's a cheapo dollop from a plastic bottle or a ceramic jar of something fancy-pants, frilly and froggy, it's essentially the same stuff." Oliver Thring, The Guardian

So which mustard is better - French, English or American? After all that's what I titled this post. Well it probably depends who you talk to. No doubt the Americans would defend to the death their brand of sweetish mustard with which they douse their hot dogs. Me - not so much. Cooks will say that you should stick to a light coloured mustard for sauces, for the darker ones make your dish look an unappetising colour. And you should also add the mustard towards the end of the cooking as it loses its aroma with heat. I'm not sure I go along with that though. After all the Indians start their cooking process with the mustard seeds which they generally heat in oil before adding anything else. But really it depends what you are cooking I think as to which type you use - though most gourmet people go for the French from Dijon - which you can buy in abundance from your local supermarket. I checked out Woolworths this morning and they did have a fair range but it didn't seem to include the genuine French article but I was in a bit of a hurry and didn't look too hard. Elizabeth David preferred French because,

"I find it less brutal and more aromatic, while English-made copies of French mustards ... all seem to me lacking resemblance to their French counterparts in strength, flavour and aroma."

But then she was a bit of a food snob in her way. I'm sure there are very acceptable Australian gourmet versions of French type mustard. And I'm not sure I can detect a huge difference between the French and the commercial imitations. Dijon, in the Burgundy area of the country, is of course the centre of the French mustard industry.

English mustard on the other hand is hot and the British don't seem to be able to eat their roast beef or ham sandwiches without it. Colman's is the prime, maybe only brand. Jeremiah Colman, the founder of the company is said to have said of himself:

"that he made his fortune not from the mustard people ate but from what they left on the sides of their plates"

He made it in Norwich and you can visit the original Colman's shop there and stock up with lovely tourist items like these posters. Here in Australia they have the same packaging but a different name - Keens. Not sure why.

I'll finish with a few quick recipe ideas from my 7 ingredients book. Well they aren't my ideas - they came from elsewhere.

Stephanie Alexander's Tomato and Mustard Tart. I've made this a few times - it's a delightfully quick and easy lunch dish or an entrée. Very summery.

Claudia Roden suggests beating 125g butter until it is light and creamy and then adding 1 or 2 tablespoons of French mustard. She also has a slightly weird recipe from Italy for a mustard sauce - Put a glassful of white wine in a saucepan with a small onion studded with 5 or 6 cloves + salt and pepper. I assume you heat it for a bit, strain and stir into about 100g mustard. It will keep for months in a corked jar.

Delia Smith has Mustard Glazed Lamb Cutlets and also her wonderful Pork Stroganoff with Three Mustards, which we have fairly frequently. Very quick and very tasty. Serve with rice and salad.

Mustard - essential and versatile.

"It's a suspension of nature – fierce and acid-sharpened, with fixed flavour and indefinite shelflife. It is, as Justin Timberlake so accurately puts it, 'one of the most amazing condiments.'" Oliver Thring, The Guardian

And why did I embark on this today? Well we are having ham steaks for dinner and I thought I would make a mustardy sauce to go with it. For:

"Ham with mustard is a meal of glory" Dodie Smith

Hope so.