A Duke of Burgundy's guests ate 320 litres of mustard in one sitting
At a gala thrown by the Duke of Burgundy in 1336, guests reportedly got through 320 litres of mustard cream at a single feast. Dijon was already famous for the stuff, but the story of mustard goes back much further, to a seed cake baked in Syria more than 10,000 years ago.
Mustard is made from the seeds of one of three plants: white or yellow mustard, brown mustard, or black mustard. Whole, cracked or ground, the seeds are mixed with a liquid such as water, vinegar, wine or lemon juice, plus salt and spices, giving pastes from bright yellow to deep brown and from sweet to fiery. The name travelled through Anglo-Norman and Old French from Latin mustum, the grape must that Romans blended with crushed seed. In English it served as a surname about a century before it is recorded as a word, in the late 13th century.
Tracing it archaeologically is hard, because plants in the cabbage family leave behind none of the silica traces that preserve other crops. Still, ground Sinapis seeds turn up in a seed cake at Jerf el Ahmar in Syria, dated between 9224 and 8753 BC. Mustard was grown in the Indus Valley, and in China yellow mustard paste dates to the Zhou dynasty, when royal courts served it to sharpen appetites before later courses. A late Roman cookbook gives a recipe mixing mustard with honey, fish sauce, herbs and vinegar as a glaze for spit-roasted boar.
France built an industry on it. Monks at Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris were producing mustard in the 10th century, mustard-makers appear on Paris royal registers in 1292, and Dijon was an established centre by the 13th century. In 1877 Maurice Grey, whose recipe used white wine, went into partnership with his backer Auguste Poupon, helped by the first automatic mustard machine. Dijon mustard received protected designation in 1937.
England had its own style: dried balls of coarse seed, flour and cinnamon, recorded in 1390 by Richard II's cooks and mixed with vinegar when needed. Tewkesbury's version, with horseradish, earned a mention in Shakespeare. In America, bright yellow French's mustard is said to have first met hot dogs at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
Source: Mustard (condiment)
