Ingredients · Spice

Mustard

Sinapis alba, Brassica juncea · Brassicaceae (cabbage family)

Mustard
Seed and powder, from two related plants: yellow mustard (Sinapis alba), which is mild, and brown or oriental mustard (Brassica juncea), which is hot. Dry mustard is not hot at all until it is wet — water sets off a reaction between the enzyme myrosinase and the seed's glucosinolates, and the heat builds over about ten minutes. Cold water makes it hotter; hot water makes it milder. Eighteen products carry it. For a Calgary shop it is also the local one: Canada was the world's top exporter of mustard seed in 2021, and Saskatchewan grows almost 90 per cent of the Canadian crop.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partSeed
KindSpice
CaffeineCaffeine-free
Where it is fromCanada
TasteSharp, nose-tingling heat once wet; before that, a dusty, faintly sweet, earthy powder

How to use it

Mix the powder with cold water and wait ten minutes for English mustard. A teaspoon in a cheese sauce, mac and cheese or a vinaigrette, where it also emulsifies. Rubbed on roast beef or ham before it goes in. In devilled eggs. A teaspoon in fried-chicken batter. Whole seeds in pickling brine, where they are one of the standard seeds, and popped in hot oil for Indian tempering.

With food

Beef and ham. Cheddar and any strong cheese. Cabbage, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. Honey. Vinegar. Sausage. Potato salad. Pretzels.

With spices

Turmeric, which gives prepared mustard its colour. Coriander, fenugreek and cumin in curry. Dill and black pepper for pickles. Celery seed. Paprika.

With tea

English Breakfast alongside a roast-beef Sunday, which is where the shop note puts it.

Its story

Where it comes from

Canada's first mustard crop was grown in Alberta in 1936; production later moved east to Saskatchewan, where nearly 3,000 farmers work about 240,000 hectares and produce most of Canada's 227,000 tonnes a year. Saskatoon runs the only mustard breeding program in North America. Canadian seed is likely in our lots but is not confirmed.

What happened

The Romans ground the seed into unfermented grape juice and called it mustum ardens, burning must — which is where the word comes from. Dijon was a recognised mustard town by the thirteenth century. In 1720 a woman in Durham whose first name no historian has found, known only as Mrs Clements, worked out how to mill mustard seed to a fine flour, travelled the country collecting orders, and had her mustard set before George I, whose liking for it made her fashionable. In 1814 a Norfolk flour miller named Jeremiah Colman took over a mustard business on the River Tas, four miles south of Norwich; the firm moved to Carrow, took a royal warrant in 1866, opened a school for employees' children, and in 1878 appointed Philippa Flowerday, one of the very first industrial nurses. In 1926 the agency that handled Colman's launched an invented Mustard Club, which at its peak received two thousand badge requests a day and ran until 1933; much of the copy was written by Dorothy L. Sayers, who later set a novel in an advertising agency. The last jar of Colman's left Carrow Works in July 2019.

On the shelf with it

Sold on its own, and in these blends.

Every ingredient in the shop

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