Sit down for a meal at any table in France and you’ll likely find a jar of mustard on the table. This is a country where mustard is given equal billing with salt and pepper – it’s an essential condiment to be liberally slathered in baguettes, brushed over meat and fish, whisked into salad dressings and melted into sauces. The prickly heat of mustard characterises all sorts of classic French dishes, from rabbit with mustard sauce to Croque Monsieur. French cookery simply wouldn’t be the same without it.
The French love affair with mustard goes back almost a thousand years – it is said that the Romans first introduced mustard to Gaul, as it was then, but French moutardiers have been making mustard in Dijon since the thirteenth century. Dijon, of course, is the epicentre of the mustard world – a capital of French gastronomic culture that boasts not only the best mustard in existence but also some of its very finest vineyards. Mustard plants and vines live together very happily; mustard is grown as a cover crop in Burgundy, managing the soil and nutrients in between grape harvests.
Rather than the bright yellow of American or English mustard, Dijon has a pale complexion that belies its potency – it may look gentle but it packs a hefty, nose-tingling punch of heat that lifts the lid off any dish. And while the generic 'Dijon' term given to this kind of mustard gives you an idea of how it will taste, there is one particular jar we have always looked for on the shelves – Grey Poupon.
