Mustard: behind the shortage, the story of a French passion

Blooming mustard field (illustration image) © Christian Ender / Getty

Text by: Olivier Favier Follow

5 mins

Mustard is the third most consumed condiment in France after salt and pepper.

Although France remains the leading European producer and the world's leading exporter of processed products, it imports most of its raw material from Canada.

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"Let's imagine that Canada, for some reason, is not able to supply the French industry" wrote in 2005 Françoise Decloquement, author of a tasty

.

She was then worried about a French production that was 95% dependent on seeds from across the Atlantic.

Sixteen years later, this simple assumption has become reality.

The heat dome in the summer of 2021 halved the production of the leading exporter to France, which, very fortunately, now “no longer” supplied more than 80% of national needs.

A world story

Family businesses, such as the Edmond Fallot house, have indeed, for several years, bet on the local revival of mustard production, but with the help of climate change, the last three seasons in France have also been pitiful, as has the year 2021 from the other potential suppliers, namely Russia and Ukraine, which have since been plunged into war.

With a most satisfactory French production in 2022, there is hope that the production of mustard paste will resume at a sustained pace by the end of the year before returning to normal during the course of next year.

In the meantime, the brown seed – that of Dijon mustard – has been by far the most affected by this crisis.

In one year, its price has been multiplied by five, when that of the pot of mustard has climbed by 10%.

The French are the biggest consumers of mustard in the world per capita – one kilogram per year – and this shortage has taken on the appearance of a melodrama whose echoes have reached even the Brazilian press.

Among the Belgian neighbours, the situation is hardly any better.

A brief look at the causes would however be enough to make this national crisis a fable on globalisation, especially since the company dominating the sector – Amora-Maille – has since 1999 only been a subsidiary of the Anglo-Dutch group. Unilever.

The moral has been drawn and we are now betting on short production circuits, even if it means asking in passing for a relaxation of phytosanitary rules: must we inevitably choose between a better carbon balance and an increase in pesticides?

A plant of ancient use in Europe

In its white or common varieties, mustard is an endemic plant in Europe.

Its black and brown varieties, on the other hand, are native to Asia.

In antiquity, it was used as a fodder plant, but it was also eaten in salads.

Its seeds, like those of pepper, are also used as a condiment, whole or crushed.

Its Greek name,

, refers to its ability to make people cry with its pungent smell.

Moreover, of all the idiomatic expressions involving mustard, the only one that has survived the centuries is that it goes up in our noses.

Mustard has also served as a preservative and rodent repellent.

Finally, its oil was prized by cooks and watchmakers alike, as it hardly went rancid and hardened.

More recently, in its white variety - called yellow in the United States - it has changed into a green manure thanks to its ability to pump nitrates.

It is this same variety that is used to manufacture British, German or North American mustards.

However, it is prohibited in the Burgundian recipe.

The term mustard, which in French designates both the plant and the condiment, comes from the common name must – the mixture obtained by pressing plants – and from the adjective ardent – ​​for its pungent taste.

It has completely supplanted, since the end of the Middle Ages, the term mustard seed, which is hardly found today except in the biblical parable known as the “mustard seed”.

In Italy, on the other hand,

designates a condiment made from flavored fruits, where mustard is almost always absent.

The plant has kept its original name of

, a term which also designates mustard sauce as it is known to the French or the English.

The wine regions are also producers of mustard

Although Burgundy mustard, in particular Dijon mustard, has had an undeniable reputation since the Middle Ages, the plant has been cultivated in other regions of France in association with the vine, since vinegar is essential for the production of this precious condiment.

The corporation of the Old Regime was also that of sauce-vinegar-mustard makers.

In Charroux, in the Allier, they still make a particularly spicy Saint-Pourçain white wine mustard.

In the 19th century, the mustard of Reims and Châlons-en-Champagne rivaled that of Dijon.

Reims tradition is today represented by Charbonneaux-Brabant, one of the giants in the sector.

Until 2000, the use of the white variety was prohibited in France for the manufacture of mustard sauce, except in the east of France following two decrees of 1937 and 1939. It was used there for the manufacture of two mustards which, "because of ancient, loyal and constant customs" were simply tolerated on condition of being called "so-called Alsace mustard" and "so-called Lorraine mustard".

The proof is made that, well before the shortage, the French had never joked with mustard.

Our selection on the subject:

• To read :

→ France: mustard is running out on some supermarket shelves

→ On France 24: Climate change, inflation and shortages: Dijon mustard in danger

• To listen :

→ 2022, a complicated year for French mustard

→ On France 24: France: why is sunflower oil missing from supermarket shelves?

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