Mustard
By Nichole
Ah, mustard, that ubiquitous yellow condiment that adds flavor from everything to salad dressing to ball park hotdogs.
The mustard plant is a member of the Brassica family. The name, mustard, is derived from the practice of crushing the seeds of the plant and mixing them with must, an unfermented wine, to make the familiar paste.
The plant has been used for thousands of years; however, its earliest recorded use was by the Romans, then spreading throughout the Empire, especially parts of Europe and England. Medieval cookbooks abound with recipes including mustard, and it is figured that the average 15th century household used as much as 84 pounds of mustard seed per year (for reference, a similar household was expected use only 5 pounds of pepper)!
The original use of mustard was medicinal, and the condiment was thought to cure everything from circulatory problems to back pain. A medieval Icelandic Medical Miscellany suggests the following recipes for mustard:
“One shall take mustard (seed) and add a fourth part of honey and grind all together with good vinegar. This is good for forty days.
One shall take mustard (seed) and a third of honey and a tenth part of anise and two such of cinnamon. Grind this all with strong vinegar and put it in a cask. This is good for three months.”
Throughout time, there have been a number of folk uses for mustard seeds as well. In Germany, it was recommended that a bride sew mustard seeds into the hem of her wedding gown, as this was believed to ensure her dominance in the household (I always wondered how my grandmother managed it!). In Denmark, folks would sprinkle the seeds to ward off evil spirits, and some of the more enterprising Danes used a potion containing mustard in order to “cure” a woman of her frigidity.
The mustard plant is famous for its edibility: the leaves, stalks and seeds can all be harvested and eaten. As a result it has been used in modern times as a symbol for feeding the hungry. It has been used to heal, preserve fruits and vegetables, and work magic, truly a “renaissance man” for the plant world.
This ancient and fascinating plant is suitable for growing in most parts of the U.S. in the cool parts of the growing season.
-TRK-
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