Mustard

I read a bunch of mustard recipes and history stuff on mustard. I read bunches of websites. I cracked open the books. For those of you who do not know about medieval mustards, just start here: http://www.gallowglass.org/jadwiga/herbs/Mustards.html That will save you an immense amount of time.

The Recipes:

A French Mustard:

From Coquinaria:
http://www.coquinaria.nl/english/recipes/03.1histrecept.htm
Moustarde. Se vous voulez faire provision de moustarde pour garder longuement, faictes la en vendenges de moulx doulx. Et aucuns dient que le moulx soit bouly. Item, se vous voulez faire moustarde en ung village a haste, broiez du senevé en ung mortier et deffaictes de vinaigre, et coulez par l'estamine. Et se vous la voulez tantost faire parer, mectez la en ung pot devant le feu. Item, et se vous la voulez faire bonne et a loisir, mectez le senevé tremper par une nuyt en bon vinaigre, puis la faictes bien broyer au moulin, et bien petit a petit destremper de vinaigre. Et se vous avez des espices qui soient de remenant de gelee, de claré, d'ypocras ou de saulses, si soyent broyez avec et après la laisser parer.

Mustard. If you want to make a supply of mustard that will keep long, make it during the picking-season (of wine grapes) from fresh stum. Some say the stum must be boiled.
Item if you want to make mustard in a village (where there is no stum) in a hurry, grind white mustard[seeds] in a mortar, mix with vinagre, and strain through the sieve. When you want to use it immediately, put it in a pot near the fire.
Item if you want to make good [mustard] at leasure, soak the mustard seeds during one night in fine vinagre, then grind in the mill, and mix in the vinagre gradually. When you have spices left over from making jelly, claret, hypocras or sauces, grind these with [the mustard seeds] and let it mature.

Hypocras:

Pour faire ung lot de bon ypocras. Prenes une onches de cinamonde nommée longue canelle en pippe, avec unes cloche de gingembre et autant de garingal, bien estampé ensemble, et puis prenez ung livre de bon çuquere: et tout cela broyés ensamble et destrempés avec ung lot du milleur vin de Beaune que pourrés finer et le laissir tremper ungne heure ou deux. Et pus coullés parmy ung chause par plusieurs fois tant qui soit bien cler.

To make a lot (=liquid measure) fine hypocras. Take one ounce cinnamon called long cinnamon in sticks, with some pieces of ginger and as much galanga, grind well together. Have a pound of fine sugar, and grind together and mix with a lot of the best wine of Beaune you can get and let this stand for one or two hours. Then let it run through a sack several times until it is clear.

250 gram white or black mustard seeds, or some of both
4 decilitre white wine vinagre of good quality
1 teaspoon mixed spices
salt

My estimates:

1 ½ cup mustard seeds,
1 3/4 cups port wine vinegar
1 teaspoon mixed spices
dash salt

The Instructions:

Preparation in advance: Since must or stum (the freshly pressed juice of winegrapes about to ferment) is available only in wine-countries in octobre, we make the mustard with wine vinagre. Let the mustard seeds soak during the night in white wine vinagre, The vinaigre should stand about 2 centimeters above the seeds.

Preparation: The next morning the mustard seeds have absorbed the vinagre, and become soft (you can crush them between your fingers). Mash them in a blender, and add as much vinagre as is needed to obtain the desired thickness. Add salt and spices. Taste it, be sure there is enough salt in it.
Keep the mustard in a well closing container in the refrigerator during at least eight days, to let the taste mature.
To serve: In small dishes on the table.

My Interpretation:
I used the last part of the recipe, which is underlined in the above quotes from the website. I do not speak French, so I used that translation. I used the following proportions:
¼ cup mustard seeds,
1/3 cups port wine vinegar
¼ teaspoon mixed spices
dash salt

I elected to use the port vinegar because ultra sweet wines were extremely popular in period and I had a fabulous bottle of old zinfandel port wine vinegar. The original author suggested white wine vinegar. I did not see any high quality white wine vinegar at my local market. There were champagnes, ports, balsamics and then very cheap white wine vinegar. This means there will be a significant difference in appearance. I think this would be a matter of preference in the middle ages and availability. Vinegar done with skill is as finicky and artistic as wine.

I soaked the seeds in the port wine vinegar in a plastic container. I didn’t have any canning jars ready. The next day, I added the spices and use the blender to chop things up. This is the hottest mustard I have ever tasted. Ever. By the way, a blender is a reasonable replacement for a stone grinder and 10 kitchen helpers. I decided.

After I made this mustard, my son who is a sous chef 'borrowed' it for the base for a sauce he made. He added a touch of commercial brown mustard. He then served it with a pot roast that was falling apart tender. It was fabulous. He also offered some good criticisms about the redaction.

Lombard Mustard:

From the Forme of Cury:
Lombard Mustard
Take Mustard seed and waishe it & drye it in an ovene, grynde it drye, farce it through a farce, clarifie honey wt wine & vinegr & stere it wel togedr, and make it thikke ynowe, & whan thou wilt spende thereof make it thynne wt wine.
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/foc/FoC108small.html

This is a particularly interesting recipe and I have seen it done about 6 different redactions. None of them was remotely close to the other so I decided to do my own. Why not? The process of washing, drying in an oven and grinding dry mustard seed and forcing it through a horse hair sieve leaves you with something theoretically similar to Coleman's mustard powder, but with the color of your original seeds. I will be testing that later. In this case, mustard powder did not stand up to the port wine vinegar. The color of the mustard is a medium brown:

1/4 cup mustard powder, either processed or ground and sifted seeds
1/2 cup port wine vinegar
1/4 cup wine (for thinning)
1/4 cup of honey

I combined my mustard powder and vinegar and let it sit over night. That is pretty common with mustard making in general. This is also pungent. It is eye watering the next day. Slowly stir in the honey and thin with wine. I just put it in the mustard crock. It is tasty, but has more heat and less vinegar taste than modern commercial honey mustard. Mustard is highly competitive, so it wouldn't surprise me that people are being trained to like a higher vinegar content.

My theory is that the vinegar content wasn't as high in period. I think mustard was one of the truly hot spices. There were fewer hot spices and ginger, mustard and peppercorns stepped in to fill the fire void. In our modern spice cabinet we have various Capsicum annuum (chili powder, cajun spices, paprika, hot chili peppers, pepper flakes and sweet bell peppers.) We also have vanilla and allspice, but the important thing here is the desire for hotness. There are people who adore hot tastes. We eat salsa, spicy burritos, Thai food and Chinese foods for a reason. That hotness is great.

So far, everything was done with yellow mustard seeds which are the lowest quality according to the grandmas I know. Black or brown is the best.