A Taste of Mustard

We were scanning the supermarket shelves, trying to decide which bottle of wine to buy. A young man suddenly came up, & offered to help. He was clearly a local & a fellow shopper. We got to talking, in English – he assumed as we were talking to each other in English we wouldn’t be able to speak any French, & it has to be admitted his English was so excellent we didn’t disabuse him.

He was still a student, doing a PhD. He’d spent some time in the USA studying, though now he was in Germany, home in Semur-en-Auxois for a holiday. He clearly loved his home town & region. He recommended a red wine to go with our meal & advised us to open it a while before drinking so it would soften with the airing.

After getting the odd other item, we went to the till to find ourselves stood behind the same young man in the queue. He went on to tell of other specialities of the area which we must try, including Edmond Fallot mustard. He offered to run & get us a jar. We thanked him for his offer but told him no, we were off to Beaune the next day. We could easily look for some while we were there.

So to Beaune with the name of Edmond Fallot in mind. Maybe a small jar would be a fitting momento of our holiday. 

We soon discovered one of the recommended highlights of Beaune was a visit to a local moutarderie (mustard factory). As it was just around the corner from our hotel, we thought we would go & see if it was wheelchair accessible.  Sure enough it turned out to belong to be the Edmond Fallot moutarderie, so we went on the guided tour.

We learnt how to make mustard. We were instructed to taste some mustard seeds & sure enough, they had a nuttiness but no heat. Then we were taught how to make our own mustard. The seeds are ground with the salt & wine/vinegar, & it is only as a result of the chemical reaction between the ingredients that the heat emerges. 

Our teacher showing us how to make mustard

 

We learnt the difference between Dijon mustard & Burgundy mustard. The latter is regulated. All the ingredients have to come from the immediate area. Aligote wine is used to make it. Dijon mustard can be made anywhere & is just a recipe for a style of wine, just as Cheddar cheese can be made throughout the world not necessarily from the Cheddar Gorge area.

Edmond Fallot is the only small independent manufacturer in the area these days. Many, like our young man in the supermarket, regard their mustard as the best. They make a whole range of different flavours of mustards, not just the basic French mustard & whole grain varieties. So we tried the blackcurrant, the tarragon to name a couple. They also made lemon & dill, provençale (red pepper & garlic), walnut, gingerbread & honey, to name but a few. We came away with a couple of pots of Burgundy mustard & lemon & dill.

It was not until we got home & were looking through our photos, that I discovered we’d been past the Edmond Fallot shop in Dijon. I suppose at the time the name meant nothing special to us. Now it does.

In Dijon

Yesterday we went down to our local village pub to discover one of the specials for the day was Mackerel Fillets with Mustard Sauce. I couldn’t help thinking that would have been just the thing to use the lemon & dill mustard for. I don’t expect they did.