American Spoon Whole Seed Mustard

So… what’s mustard?

The recipe is pretty simple – you can even make it at home. You grind up mustard seeds, traditionally with a mortar and pestle, but you can use a spice grinder. Once the seeds are ground as fine as you want them, you add liquid. Usually that’s water or vinegar, but you could also use ale or fruit juice. Next add other seasonings. Salt is a good place to start, but you can use anything from herbs to honey. Mix it all together and you’ve got mustard.

What makes some mustards hot?

First, there’s a bit of natural chemistry at work. Mustard comes from the brassica family of plants and, as a defense, these plants developed a compound called sinigrin that turns into mustard oil. It’s that oil that feels like a punch in the nose. Mustard seeds come in white, brown, and black and get hotter as they get darker so black mustard seeds have the most sinigrin.

Second, mustard makers amplify the natural chemistry with recipes that kick up its heat. Warming mustard actually lessens the reaction, so the hottest mustards are made with very cold water. Adding vinegar can halt the reaction and maintain heat so a dash of vinegar is always found in the hottest mustards. Mustards mellow over time so the hottest are usually fresher. Mustards will keep pretty much indefinitely even at room temperature, but they’ll retain more of their pungency when refrigerated.

What’s the deal with Dijon?

Mustard made in the French town of Dijon has a long history of being considered some of the best; it was the mustard of choice for French royalty in the 14th century. There have been laws regulating how it’s made since 1407. These days, the laws stipulate that Dijon mustard must be made with brown or black mustard seed, the darker varieties, making it pungent. There’s a long tradition of using verjuice – the very tart juice of unripe grapes from nearby vineyards – to make Dijon mustard, and the acid helps to balance out the heat. The result is generally a mustard that’s smooth but packs a serious punch.

How did American mustard get so yellow?

A little over a hundred years ago Americans barely used mustard – it was sold mostly as a powder and it was hot. In 1904, Robert French launched a mild “cream salad mustard” that was spreadable and sales took off after it hit a hot dog at the St. Louis’s World Fair. French’s mustard is still a huge seller. Robert colored it yellow with turmeric to set it apart. Competitors copied the look and, ever since, the go-to American mustard has remained bright yellow and fairly bland (thanks to using only mild white mustard seeds). There’s more flavorful yellow mustard to be found out there; Raye’s in Maine makes an exceptional classic yellow mustard that I’ve always got in my fridge.

Here’s a secret about American Spoon’s Whole Seed Mustard: it’s actually not mustard. You wouldn’t think that to look at the ingredient list; it’s made of the same stuff as mustard. You wouldn’t think it’s not mustard when you use it, either; it tastes like mustard and makes a great addition to sausages, burgers, sandwiches, vinaigrettes, and just about anywhere else you’d want to use mustard.

Before you lose sleep tonight worrying about why it’s excluded by the other mustard kids on the block, here’s the distinction: true mustard is made from seeds that are ground to make a paste. They can be ground smooth and creamy, like Raye’s yellow mustard, or more coarsely so that you still get the crunch of some whole seeds, like violet mustard. But American Spoon’s mustard isn’t ground at all. Instead, the seeds are left whole and brined, which means technically I should be calling it pickled mustard seed, not mustard proper. But I hope you’ll excuse me—I’m going to keep calling it mustard, and you can too.

American Spoon makes the champagne of mustard.

Because the seeds are left whole they are very crunchy. When you bite them they burst in your mouth with a pop like caviar or, better yet, like champagne bubbles. Since the spread is made of whole mustard seeds suspended in just enough brine to keep it wet and hold it together, every nibble is as effervescent as the last. This is champagne food at a fraction of the cost.

American Spoon even uses sparkling wine in the mustard. But rather than sourcing champagne from across the Atlantic, they looked just down the road from their kitchen in Petoskey, Michigan to local winemaker Larry Mawby. Mawby has been producing sparkling wines—and only sparkling wines—on Michigan’s Leelenau peninsula under his L. Mawby label since 1978. American Spoon brings in his Green sparkling wine by the barrel and mixes it with vinegar, salt, and spices like cardamom along with yellow and black mustard seeds. Using the wine gives a deeper, richer flavor to the mustard seeds than if they were brined just in vinegar (as most pickled mustard seeds are). Unfortunately the wine’s bubbles are long gone by the time you open the jar—the only pop will be the mustard seed.

What the heck do you do with American Spoon’s mustard, anyway?

The flavor is bright and tangy. It’s incredibly well balanced: a bit sweet, a bit acidic, with just a small bit of mustard heat. But it’s the texture that really stands out for me, so I like to use it in ways where that facet can shine, like dolloping it on a grilled pork chops or atop lox like you’d do with capers. It’s great smeared on a bratwurst or pretzel, too. Noah Marshall-Rashid, son of American Spoon founder Justin Rashid, told me he really likes to eat it with tinned fish like sardines, where the saltiness and silkiness of the fish plays off its brightness and crunch.