Previous posts on Mustard balls, cannon balls and Mustard flour, jars. The four recipes from Dictionaire oeconomique -
1) "Their
Way of making Mustard in France, is to clean the Seed very well and to sift it;
then they wash it in cold Water, leaving it one whole Night in the Water, and
after that they take it out; and when they have squeez'd it with their Hands,
they put it into a clean and neat Mortar, and having pounded it with a Pestle
with some strong vinegar, they afterwards strain it.
2) Others
take two Ounces of Mustard-feed, and half an Ounce of Cinnamon; which being
pounded very small, they mix it with Honey and Vinegar and form a Paste of
them, and of that make small Cakes, which are dried in the Sun or an Oven; when
they use it, they dissolve a Cake in Vinegar, Verjuice, or other Liquor.
3) A
third Way they have of making Mustard, which they call Anjou or Dijon Mustard:
They first remove the Acrimony of it, by steeping the Grain in sweet Wine,
during the Vintages, and preparing it as aforesaid ; then they put it into small
Casks, which is the practise at Anjou; but the Dijonnese form it into small Cakes,
and when they would use it, they dissolve it in Vinegar. This Mustard bears a
better Price than the rest, because the Seed which grows at Dijon is better.
4) When
they would make Mustard to last eight Days to mix it in Sauces or Victuals;
they may take of the Seed and put it into a Pot of Sweetmeats, or other Pots
with Wine well sweetned; it must not be used before the next Day; three or four
Days after a little Wine may be mix'd with it the better to refresh it, and
thus it will last eight Days."
Dictionaire
oeconomique: or, The family dictionary by Noel Chomel (Paris), revised by
Richard Bradley. London: 1725
The legend of Moult
tarde
“
In 1382, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, going to march against his revolted
neighbours, and Dijon having furnished for that expedition its quantum of 1000
armed men, the duke, in kind acknowledgment, granted to the town, among other
privileges, the permission of bearing his armorial ensigns with his motto, moult me lurde, 'I long, I wish
ardently.’
In consequence of this mark of princely
condescension, the Dijonese municipality ordered the arms and motto to be
beautifully sculptured over the principal gate of the city, which was done accordingly.
But time… and that incessant drop of water which causes the destruction of the
hardest stone obliterated the middle word
me, the remaining ones, moult, tarde, gave occasion to the name in the
following manner.
For
a long lapse of time, the merchants of Dijon have been, and are still, great
dealers in …mustard seed and have a method of grinding it with salt, vinegar,
and other ingredients, in order to preserve it, and send it to all parts of the
world. On their mustard-pots they used to paste a label, ensigned with the Duke
of Burgundy's arms and the motto as it accidentally remained then over the gate
of the city, moult-tarde; hence the name which the sinapi [mustard] composition
has preserved to this day.
It might be observed, that the natural
pungency of this little seed, expressed in Latin by multum ardet, and in old
French by moulte ardet, 'it burns much,' might be taken as the real thema of the word. But it does not
appear that the Dijonese were ever scholars enough as to borrow from the tongue
of Cicero [Latin] a denomination for the object of their trade. However, in latter
times, an eminent mustard-manufacturer of that place proved himself somewhat
acquainted with Latin, since he wrote jocosely over his shop-door, Multum
tardat, Divio rixam; that is, Moult-tarde, Dijonnoise; 'Dijon-mustard.' “
The
Edinburgh Monthly Magazine 1820
The mustard pot picture is from Objets d’hier
©2015 Patricia Bixler Reber
Researching Food History HOME
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment