King Kon-diment Going Ape Over Mustard!
Written: Dec 23 '05 (Updated Dec 24 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Reveals many unusual and interesting mustard facts
Cons: Needs more potato recipes
The Bottom Line: A great book for both the epicure and the epicurious.
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| nagels's Full Review: The Incredible Secrets of Mustard: The Quintessent... |
I hope this review is my signature statement, a testimony to my diversity, depth, and intrepidness. It affirms that I am not a one trick pony, not just about potatoes and Potato Heads. Rather I am an aficionado of the novel and different, one undaunted by a venture into a new, uncertain world of untried foods. Painter of vaulted ceilings, sculptor of mashed potatoes, the quintessential Byzantine Man am I, open minded, well rounded and becoming even rounder as the holidays progress.
Welcome to the incredible world of mustard, a world revealed in great detail and breadth by Marie Nadine Antol in her condimentary masterpiece The Incredible Secrets of Mustard. Read this book, and they will be secrets no longer. On these 200 pages we meet the mustard family, learn about this plant’s extensive history, are introduced to the incredible variety of mustard flavors, learn about medical mustard and finally are privileged to share, savor and perhaps sample ourselves almost a hundred pages full of mustard featured recipes. Sometimes the leading man, sometimes a bit player, mustard plays a significant role in all of these tangy recipes. Join me now in perhaps your first glimpse of the “Incredible Secrets of Mustard” and get a taste of what this tangy book is all about.
The recent avalanche of Stain Pen reviews on Epinions, several of which involved intricate experiments involving mustard (one in particular by dianapinions), piqued my interest in mustard.
I explored the Epinions database, took a trip to Half.com and, as they say, the rest is history, the history of mustard. Marie Antol’s book is nicely organized into two parts. The first part, after her foreword and an amusing introduction by Barry “I am obsessed with mustard” Levenson, curator of the Mount Horeb Mustard Museum, is comprised of 8 chapters logically arranged. The second part, of almost equal length, contains a spicy variety of mustard recipes. I was hoping that somewhere in this book I’d learn the definitive method for removing mustard stains from T-shirts. Later you’ll learn if I did.
Chapter One - Meet the Mustard Family
In this chapter we get an in depth look at the mustard plant, mustard seeds, various types of mustards, and, as in every chapter, some intriguing mustard tidbits.
Mustard is a food, medicine, spice and condiment and is exceeded in worldwide popularity only by pepper. Its seeds have been used for centuries and are delicacies for some birds and mammals. These seeds which are 35% oil have been used as lubricant, a soap ingredient and a fuel in oil lamps. In this chapter we also learn about the medicinal uses of white mustard seeds and the source of mustard’s distinctive yellow color, dyes and/or tumeric.
Chapter Two – Mustard in History
This chapter offers a fascinating look at the history of the yellow condiment. The earliest reference to mustard was found on a 4,000 year-old Sumerian tablet written in cuneiform. Hippocrates 460-360 BC prescribed mustard medicinally, and Greeks attributed its discovery to Asclepius – a Greek god of medicine. We discover here that mustard cream probably originated in France and Grey-Poupon was born in 1777. In colonial America mustard plasters were used to treat catarrh and ague.
Chapter 3 - Mustard and Your Health
“…and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.” –Ezekiel 47:12
In this chapter we read about the uses of mustard in Chinese, Indian, European, Asian and modern medicines. The ten pages of “recipes” for mustard based remedies include those such as: mustard plaster, knee bath, deep heat rub, foot bath, constipation aid, and mustard honey for hemorrhoids. Mustard has been and is used as a digestive aid, an emetic, a diuretic, and an expectorant. Some of you might flinch at the suggestion of covering a mustard wrap with a cotton T-shirt. Try getting the stain out of that one!
Chapter 4- Mustard Miscellany
There’s plenty of fascinating mustard trivia here. I’ll just mention a few. Mustard has been used to combat fat oxidation, as an antibacterial agent, an acne treatment, a hair straightener, and for uranium detection. The author is excited about mustard’s use in phytoremediation – the use of plants to leech heavy metal contaminants from soil. I would suggest not getting any mustard on your Twisted Sister or Metallica CD’s.
Chapter 5 – Mustard and the Supernatural
I found this to be a silly chapter, a fluffy soufflé about the superstitions and charms involving mustard as an ingredient. It’s important to note that the mustard plant is in harmony with the planet Mars and the zodiac sign Aries.
Chapter 6 – Mustard Varieties & Chapter 7 – Cultivating Mustard
These two chapters deal with the seemingly endless varieties of mustard and how to grow and make your own mustard. The author lists and annotates 54 of her favorite mustards grouped by basic mustards, sweet mustards, fruit mustards, herb mustards, hot mustards, old world mustards, mustards of spirits (yes, apparently ghosts enjoy mustard also), and miscellaneous mustards. Even a Byzantine man like myself had no idea so many kinds of mustard existed.
In chapter 7 the author gives advice on selecting seeds, preparing the ground, sowing, caring for , and harvesting of mustard plants. We also learn here that Canada is the world’s largest exporter of white mustard seeds and that mustard plant leaves make excellent feed for sheep.
Chapter 8 – A Celebration of Mustard
In this chapter we get details about the world’s three mustard museums – Colman’s Mustard Shop and Museum in England, Moutarde Maille Shops and Museum in France, and Mount Horeb Mustard Museum in Wisconsin. The Mount Horeb Mustard museum catalog offers an incredible selection of mustards and mustard paraphernalia available by mail order. At the end of the chapter is a two-page list of words for mustard in 54 languages. Oddly the list omits translations for mustard into French and English.
PART TWO – THE RECIPES
The second part of the book consists of 100 pages of mustard themed recipes, each recipe with a short introduction or background information.
On these pages are recipes for mustard creams, soups, salads, salad dressings, sauces, marinades, relishes, meat and poultry entrees, fish entrees, meatless entrees, side dishes, and bread. A tablespoon of mustard is only 15 calories, so eat up.
I would have liked to have seen more recipes featuring potatoes here, but there are a few: hearty mustard soup, creamy mustard green soup, basic potato salad, warm whole grain mustard potato salad, spicy pork and potatoes, and okra and potatoes.
And Last
I actually bought this book on a lark and was surprised a lark could hold a book of this size. It was unexpectedly interesting and informative with facts that may stand me in good stead if I remember any of them. Of course, as with any book I read, I would have liked more pictures. Probably the most compelling fact in the book can be found on page 76 -Getting Mustard Out of Clothes.At this point I should just say read the book to find out how, but I won’t. Here verbatim and exactly as written are the words of Ms. Antol.
“Wipe or scrape off as much of the mustard as possible, as soon as possible. Then soak the stain in diluted bleach if the fabric is bleachable. If the fabric is not bleachable, try treating the stain with vinegar or peroxide.”
And there you have it. If the stubborn mustard stain is so stubborn that you let some bad language slip, just excuse yourself by saying, “Please pardon my French’s.”
Recommended:
Yes
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