Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Mustard
Well, kiddies, I tried finding mustard in the news, but only came up with far too many recipes involving rubbing mustard on various sides of meat. This is fine, but a little uncreative -- mustard can be dipped into, cooked with, smeared upon, rubbed throughout and just eaten on its own. That's right, just eaten on its own. I read in the source of all vaguely alterna-hippie health information, DrWeil.com, that mustard can relieve nausea and stomach upset.
I did come up with one reference to mustard gas, a dreadful chemical-bio agent that smells like mustard and causes skin to break out in blisters. But the gas itself has "absolutely no relation whatsoever to culinary mustard." And if Wikipedia says it, it must be true because it's on the Interweb.
So, the word mustard has been used for good and for evil. Mustard itself increases circulation (mustard wrap, anyone?), reduces inflammation and keeps you from getting batty and senile in your old age. That last part is because mustard is often prepared with turmeric, which is a compound in curry and apparently no one in India ever gets Alzheimers. So, if you eat enough mustard, you don't have to do Sudoko or play bridge or any of those other crazy things people do to keep their minds sharp.
But, here's an interesting fun fact, back in Medeival England, the average household consumed 84 pounds of mustard seed a year. That's right -- 84 pounds. And they sure weren't a lot healthier considering the average life span was 29 years or something. On a good day.
I'll leave you to continue to ponder this paradox with this Medeival Icelandic recipe for mustard that I found on a Medeival Mustard site (this Interweb really does have everything.)
From an old Icelandic Medical Miscellany ( supposed to be 15th century from a lost manuscript of the 13th century) :
Condiment Grrl
I did come up with one reference to mustard gas, a dreadful chemical-bio agent that smells like mustard and causes skin to break out in blisters. But the gas itself has "absolutely no relation whatsoever to culinary mustard." And if Wikipedia says it, it must be true because it's on the Interweb.
So, the word mustard has been used for good and for evil. Mustard itself increases circulation (mustard wrap, anyone?), reduces inflammation and keeps you from getting batty and senile in your old age. That last part is because mustard is often prepared with turmeric, which is a compound in curry and apparently no one in India ever gets Alzheimers. So, if you eat enough mustard, you don't have to do Sudoko or play bridge or any of those other crazy things people do to keep their minds sharp.
But, here's an interesting fun fact, back in Medeival England, the average household consumed 84 pounds of mustard seed a year. That's right -- 84 pounds. And they sure weren't a lot healthier considering the average life span was 29 years or something. On a good day.
I'll leave you to continue to ponder this paradox with this Medeival Icelandic recipe for mustard that I found on a Medeival Mustard site (this Interweb really does have everything.)
From an old Icelandic Medical Miscellany ( supposed to be 15th century from a lost manuscript of the 13th century) :
- One shall take mustard (seed) and add a fourth part of honey and grind all together with good vinegar. This is good for forty days.
- One shall take mustard (seed) and a third of honey and a tenth part of anise and two such of cinnamon. Grind this all with strong vinegar and put it in a cask. This is good for three months.
Condiment Grrl
posted by CondimentGrrl at 10:40 PM
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