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[61]World's Table | [62]Food & Drink
Why there's no 'Dijon' in Dijon mustard
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(Image credit: Ed Rooney/Alamy)
France is facing a widespread dearth of Dijon mustard (Credit: Ed
Rooney/Alamy)
By Emily Monaco17th August 2022
France is facing a widespread dearth of Dijon mustard, which news
outlets wasted no time in attributing to the war in Ukraine. But the
story is a whole lot spicier than that.
T

Take a wander down any condiment aisle in France these days, and you'll
notice a pervasive absence between le mayo and le ketchup. Since this
May, France has faced a widespread dearth of Dijon mustard, leading
[65]one French resident to advertise two jars for sale to the tune of
EUR6,000 or about £5,000 (since revealed to be merely in jest). The
shortage has incited expats (this author included) to
not-at-all-jokingly smuggle squeeze bottles of [66]Maille back into the
country from places like the US to get their fix, while author and
Paris resident [67]David Lebovitz even resorted to hunting his jars
down at a local gardening store, of all places.

While French news outlets wasted no time in attributing the shortage to
the war in Ukraine, the real story is a whole lot spicier than that.

Omnipresent on French tables, Dijon mustard, made by combining brown
mustard seeds with white wine, is a beloved condiment that provides a
counterpoint to rich, hearty dishes thanks to its acidity and heat.
It's the perfect accompaniment to a slice of crisp-skinned roast
chicken, the ideal way to jazz up a simple ham-and-butter sandwich and
an essential ingredient in homemade mayonnaise.

That the condiment is so anchored in France's Burgundy region - of
which Dijon is the capital city - is thanks to the historical
co-planting of brown mustard seeds with the region's renowned
grapevines, a practice introduced by the Ancient Romans to provide the
vines with essential nutrients like phosphorous. Monks continued to
cultivate mustard in this fashion for centuries, and, in 1752, the link
between Dijon and mustard was cemented thanks to Dijon local Jean
Naigeon, who married the seeds, not with vinegar, but with verjuice -
the juice of unripe wine grapes historically used to add a pleasantly
sour flavour to recipes in regions inhospitable to citrus.

Dijon mustard stands out from other mustards on the market for its
subtle, balanced flavour. Packing more heat than American yellow
mustard but less than powerful Chinese mustard or Bavarian senf, it
capitalises on the pungency of the mustard seed by marrying it with the
pleasant acidity of local Burgundian verjuice or, in most contemporary
iterations, white wine.

But the truth is that despite its historical link the to the region,
Dijon mustard has been delocalised for quite some time.
Historically, mustard seeds have been co-planted with Burgundy's
renowned grapevines (Credit: Reine de Dijon)

Historically, mustard seeds have been co-planted with Burgundy's
renowned grapevines (Credit: Reine de Dijon)

After Burgundian farmers largely abandoned mustard cultivation in
favour of higher-paying crops decades ago, moutardiers (mustard makers)
began looking further afield for the tiny seed at the root of the
condiment that launched 1,000 "[68]Pardon me, sir" [69]jokes. Their
mustard seed needs were chiefly met by Canada, which produces about
[70]80% of the world's supply. But this winter, Canadian-grown mustard
also dried up, when, after several years of declining production had
reduced stores, dry summer weather obliterated the Canadian crop,
[71]sending mustard seed prices skyrocketing threefold.

Though the shortage was not caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
it was exacerbated by it, impacting Dijon mustard makers "indirectly",
according to Luc Vandermaesen, CEO of mustard producer [72]Reine de
Dijon. Rather than the brown seeds required for Dijon, Ukraine
predominantly produces the white variety used in yellow and English
mustard. Given the conflict, producers less tied to specific mustard
varieties turned to Canada's already meagre supply, intensifying the
shortage.

Inadvertently, this all shed new light on the discrepancy between the
name "Dijon mustard" and where it's made. After all, unlike Champagne
or Roquefort, the "Dijon" in Dijon mustard refers to a specific recipe
and not to a geographic region protected by an Appellation d'Origine
Contrôlée (AOC) or Appellation d'Origine Protégée (AOP) designation,
which regulate products like wine, cheese and even lentils with an iron
fist.

"There are no rules keeping the production of Dijon mustard in [the
city of] Dijon," said Sophie Mauriange of the [73]Institut National de
l'Origine et de la Qualité (INAO), the governing board that controls
the AOC and AOP labels in France. "You can make it anywhere in the
world."
Maille closed its Dijon factory, moving production to
Chevigny-Saint-Sauveur (Credit: CW Images/anna.q/Alamy)

Maille closed its Dijon factory, moving production to
Chevigny-Saint-Sauveur (Credit: CW Images/anna.q/Alamy)

And they do. Grey-Poupon, created in Dijon by Maurice Grey and Auguste
Poupon in 1866 (and [74]the preferred mustard of American hip-hop
artists), has been made in the US since the 1940s. And in 2009, nine
years after its purchase by Unilever, France's biggest Dijon producer,
Amora-Maille (which makes Maille mustard), closed its Dijon factory,
moving production to the nearby commune of Chevigny-Saint-Sauveur.

"As far as we know," said Mauriange, "there is almost no production of
mustard in Dijon itself, save a very small amount at [75][La
Moutarderie] Fallot's Dijon shop." (The artisanal producer has long
made the bulk of its mustard at its factory in the nearby town of
Beaune, where it was founded in 1840, and only opened its Dijon
boutique, complete with a small, on-site workshop, in 2014.)

The truth is that while Dijon is in the mustard's name, the product is
- and always has been - rooted in the city's surrounding countryside,
where mustard production flourished in the decades that followed the
condiment's 1752 invention. Charcoal producers would sow mustard seeds
in fields filled with coal residue, a natural fertiliser, and the
resulting seeds, explained Marc Désarménien, CEO and third generation
head of La Moutarderie Fallot, were sold to master moutardiers in Dijon
or Beaune.

"They had organised into a cooperative, at the time," Désarménen said
of the local master moutardiers, of which there were already 33 in the
early 19th Century. "So, there was what I would call a fairly powerful,
fairly strong mustard industry."
Reine de Dijon is one of France's major mustard producers (Credit:
Reine de Dijon)

Reine de Dijon is one of France's major mustard producers (Credit:
Reine de Dijon)

The decline of truly local mustard nevertheless began nearly a century
ago: when Désarménien's grandfather purchased Fallot in 1928, he relied
on "French mustard seeds, but not only", said Désarménien. "He needed
to source seeds in other French regions and in other European countries
in order to have a stable, high-quality product."

After World War Two, Burgundian farmers turned their back on the little
mustard seed in favour of producing other crops, notably rapeseed for
cooking oil and animal feed, which garnered them better pay thanks to
government subsidies. By the 1980s, Mauriange said, "almost all mustard
production was made with seeds imported from Canada."

The [76]Association des Producteurs de Graines de Moutarde, an
association of mustard growers founded in 1997, couldn't have existed
even a decade earlier, when low demand for local seeds meant that
production of Burgundian mustard had, according to its head Laure
Ohleyer, "practically disappeared". But Burgundian mustard seeds began
to experience a quiet renaissance in the '90s, thanks in large part to
Unilever.

"They wanted to re-localise production," Ohleyer said of Amora-Maille's
parent company. "And that's how it all began."

In recent years, thanks to demand from mustard producers, Burgundian
farmers grew some 5,000 tons of mustard seeds annually - a portion of
which have had an even more illustrious destiny than simple Dijon
mustard.
Edmund Fallot makes mustard within the IGP called Moutarde de Bourgogne
(Credit: Tuul and Bruno Morandi/Alamy)

Edmund Fallot makes mustard within the IGP called Moutarde de Bourgogne
(Credit: Tuul and Bruno Morandi/Alamy)

As French producers of [77]Camembert learned in the '80s, it's nearly
impossible to protect a product's geographic origin retroactively. But
in the early 2000s, some mustard producers sought to take better
advantage of the newly blossoming mustard seed industry and rekindle
the notion of tying it to the local terroir. In 2009, they established
an Indication Géographique Protégée (IGP) - a protected label similar
to the AOP, but with fewer constraints. And while Dijon certainly gets
more name recognition, it is this IGP - called Moutarde de Bourgogne -
that actually means something: that the mustard is made in the Burgundy
region with Burgundian seeds and Burgundian wine.

The IGP endeavour was spearheaded in large part by La Moutarderie
Fallot's Désarménien, who Mauriange cited as "the most active in the
request for recognition of the IGP". Indeed, of the five large mustard
producers sourcing their mustard seeds from the mustard growers'
association, Fallot is the only one that is making the entirety of its
mustard within the IGP.

While Dijon certainly gets more name recognition, it is this IGP - called
Moutarde de Bourgogne - that actually means something

For Désarménien, localising production was essential to maintaining the
values of his artisanal business, which still stone-grinds its seeds at
low temperature to maintain a slightly grainier texture and a fuller
flavour. Of course, if Fallot can use exclusively Burgundian seeds,
it's in large part because the company is far smaller than the four
other mustard producers (Amora-Maille, Reine de Dijon, Européenne des
Condiments and Charbonneaux-Brabant) sourcing at least some of their
seeds from the association's producers.

The four others, Désarménien said, are responsible for about 80 to 90%
of all French Dijon mustard production, with Fallot representing about
5% of the total local mustard market. Reine de Dijon's Vandermaesen
said that less than 1% of his production is currently in the IGP, in
part due to the price of the Burgundian white wine required. "But [this
percentage] is growing," he said.

Or it was.

Of late, climate change and resulting infestations of mustard-loving
meligethes (a type of pollen beetle) have halted - and even reversed -
the growth of the local mustard market. And while pesticides were long
the first line of defence, widespread insecticide resistance - not to
mention the European Union's increasing stringency regarding chemical
pesticides - has made it more difficult for growers to control these
types of problems and bounce back.

"Until now, industrial producers were buying more and more from us each
year," Ohleyer said. "But production can't keep up." Despite the
demand, she said, Burgundian seeds currently represent only 20-30% of
the supply.
La Moutarderie Fallot represents about 5% of the total local mustard
market in France (Credit: Georg Berg/Alamy)

La Moutarderie Fallot represents about 5% of the total local mustard
market in France (Credit: Georg Berg/Alamy)

For Mauriange, while these issues have certainly caused short-term
problems for the mustard industry, there may be a silver lining to the
recent shortage.

"This project had been facing climate challenges these last few years,
which discouraged a lot of farmers," she said, noting, nevertheless,
that a rise in prices for seeds following the shortage "has rekindled
the dynamic" and encouraged farmers to devote themselves ever more
diligently to successful production of this now-scarce crop.

For Désarménien, the answer may indeed be found in the rich history of
the region.

"Our ancestors had growing methods that allowed them to limit these
eventualities - insects and the like," said Désarménien. "Today, we're
more in this mindset: of learning how we can move beyond chemicals to
produce crops that may not be organic yet, but that are sustainable, if
you like. That's our goal."

While "Dijon mustard" will likely never refer to a truly local product
again, Moutarde de Bourgogne seems destined to develop its own
reputation: not the connotations of grandeur or luxury Dijon producers
have long capitalized on, but rather of sustainability and terroir.

And, if this year's harvest is any indication, the times seem to
finally be changing for the little Burgundian mustard seed. Burgundian
mustard growers brought in yields 50% higher than last year's,
exceeding even the historic precedent set in 2016, French news outlet
[78]20 Minutes reported in late July. As a result, moutardiers expect
to be able to restock the condiment shelves this November - just in
time to add tangy, spicy flavour to France's most beloved autumnal
dishes.

BBC.com's [79]World's Table "smashes the kitchen ceiling" by changing
the way the world thinks about food, through the past, present and
future.

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