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A Brief Mustard Story [1]
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Date: 2022-07-31
Our standby mustard. The glass jar makes a sturdy tumbler for beverages once the mustard is gone -- kind of like the jars I remember in the U.S. when I was a kid before screw-on caps became ubiquitous and using old jars as tumblers no longer was a practical option.
In today’s world there are sporadic and sometimes persistent shortages of various products. Semiconductors for automakers. Toilet paper for consumers. Formula for infants.
These shortages can be at times infuriating and at other times potentially harmful.
There’s another shortage you may have heard about: mustard in France.
Mustard (moutarde) is a vital part of French cuisine. It is a star ingredient in countless sauces and dressings, and is indispensable with certain foods, for example to enhance (some might say disguise) the flavor of andouillette sausage, which is made from the last few centimeters of a pig’s colon, prompting the famous quote from former French Prime Minister, and long-term Mayor of Lyon, Edouard Herriot:
La politique, c'est comme l'andouillette, ça doit sentir un peu la merde, mais pas trop. Or, in English: Politics is like andouillette — it has to smell a bit like shit, but not too much.
Sounds about right.
Well, the mustard shortage in France is real. I‘ve seen reporting, for example, from the Washington Post, where commenters question whether there is, in fact, a shortage. I can testify that yes, there is. We shop at street markets for produce but at a local supermarket for many commodities. Occasionally we venture into an hypermarché (a very large store like a Meijer or Fred Meyer store in the U.S.) to stock up on things only they carry.
I can tell you this: in the part of France where I live, it's been at least two months since I’ve seen mustard for sale on the shelf.
Anywhere.
At first, the shelf where mustard formerly was sold was just empty. After a week or so, the store management posted a sheet of paper on the former mustard shelves explaining why there’s no mustard (mostly because of dwindling supplies of mustard seed from Canada due to drought and planting decisions by Canadian farmers). In the following weeks, mayonnaise and other condiments began to encroach into the former mustard space,
But still no mustard.
Our supply of mustard began to dwindle. We use it mostly for salad dressing and to marinate meat prior to cooking. But we also use it on the occasional sandwich; much as I suspect you guys do.
Recently, we hosted friends from the eastern U.S. at our place. They were on a tour of Italy and France and wanted to stop by to see us, and to see the various sights in Normandie that interest visitors from the U.S. — Omaha Beach, Utah Beach, the white cliffs at Étretat, the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, the Bayeux tapestry, and so forth. While they were here, we mentioned the shortage of mustard in passing, and thought nothing more of it.
These friends are Republican. They’re not the crazy Republicans one so often sees — they’re curious and have well-exercised passports and hate Trump. But they still seem to believe in the fiction that a rational Republican Party, such as the one that elected Eisenhower as president, still exists.
After a day where they were self-guiding themselves on a tour of sites, they proudly presented us with a dozen or so packets of Dijon mustard — the kind casual restaurants hand out for you to add to your food as desired.
Now, I need to remind you that mustard is in short supply. Not just for we individual consumers, but for food processors and, yes, even restaurants. They asked for mustard at a restaurant for lunch and the waitress brought out a porcelain jar full of Dijon packets. They all but cleaned her out. And were happy about it.
Perfect, I thought. It fits. A classic trait of Republicans is lack of empathy. They didn’t care that the restaurant most likely was facing a shortage of mustard. They didn’t think that, maybe, the waitress that served them got chewed out by her boss when he or she saw that nearly all the mustard was gone. It probably didn’t even occur to them. They wanted the mustard to give to us, so they took it. Slipped it into their handbags.
It’s not even the kind of mustard we prefer — it’s what the French call moutarde douce, or soft mustard. It’s not sweet, of course, it’s just not as nose-burningly hot as what we prefer, moutarde forte (strong mustard).
But I look at that collection of packets sitting in our pantry every now and then and I think about the waitress at that restaurant they took advantage of. I doubt they’ve thought about her once.
One sees it over and over again — the lack of empathy among conservatives. It’s amazing how consistent it is
Anyway, I have good news to report: we were in a large city a few days ago that has several ethnic markets. At one that mostly sold African and Middle Eastern products, we found mustard. Large jars (1.065 kg, or about 2.3 pounds).
My new mustard supply in the wine cave at our house
They had several — I could have bought them all and sold them at a profit around my little town where no one can buy it unless they travel to this store or some similar place.
But I didn’t. I figure others need their mustard too and who am I to clean out this store’s stock?
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