When thinking of condiments that are quintessentially British, usually 2 products come to mind: Colman’s Mustard and HP Sauce. Considering that brown sauces, like HP, are a relatively modern invention (i.e. the mid-1800s) and currently made outside of the UK, they can hardly stand up to the one condiment that we have known and loved even before England was England: mustard. For lovers of the yellow paste, it is difficult to imagine what a roast beef sandwich or sausages would be like without it, but beyond a boring meal, what do we really know about the word mustard?
Though that tin of Colman’s has been made since 1814, the formulation within has a much longer history. Before being popularised globally, mustard was first cultivated as a spice by the Indus Valley Civilisation before 1800 BC. As for our own domestic interest in the stuff, that can be attributed to the Romans, who first introduced us to the “hot” (ardens in Latin) condiment made using these yellow seeds and “young wine” (mustum in Latin), hence must-ard. Beyond originating from Latin roots, our word arrived in English in the late 13th century from Old French, via the Normans.
Interestingly, for something that is so widely identified with this island, there was a time almost a decade ago when the future of a domestically grown mustard was highly in doubt. In 2006-07, numerous years of poor weather, lingering fertilisation issues, and lack of overall investment combined to produce one of the worst harvests on record. The writing was on the wall for a number of farmers, as they switched to more “easier,” more lucrative crops, such as rapeseed and wheat. However, a group of 11 determined East Anglian farmers dug in their heels and decided to fight by forming and funding a co-operative. Thanks to their efforts as well as an increasingly diverse market for mustard seed- new applications in medicine and as a bio-fumigant are helping to raise the price of a tonne for farmers- it now looks as it mustard will have a home in England for many years to come.
The first known mention of mustard in English comes from John Webb’s revision of Johannes de Kemeseye’s original 1289 work, A Roll of the Household Expenses of Richard de Swinfield, where, referring to the original mustard powder, it is simply written, “In mustard” At the turn of the century (the beginning of the 1400s), we finally see the first known recipe: in The Forme of Cury (Forms of Cooking), a recipe calls for “wine Greek (sweet Marsala) and clarified honey together with mustard & currants.” Moving beyond a thing of foodstuffs, mustard soon acquired a more generalised meaning, usually due to it’s colour or consistency, even being quoted by Shakespeare in Henry IV, Part 2, when Falstaff describes Poins as having a wit “as thick as Tewksbury mustard.”
