I’ve been a sucker for mustard ever since the time I ordered a ham sandwich without mustard, but it turned up covered in the stuff. At that moment, everything changed.
On balance, English mustard is my personal favourite. So, on a sunny day spent with Colman’s in Norwich, I was unnerved to hear that in 2007 it was nearly all over for English mustard as we know it, thanks to a disastrous harvest of mustard seeds.
The situation was so bad that there was a very real danger that “English” mustard would cease to exist. Yet it’s often in crisis that the keenest minds find renewed focus, and the unmitigated disaster of 2007 led to the formation of the English Mustard Growers – a green-(yellow-?) fingered collective of 14 farmers with a love of mustard and a fierce determination to put things right.
“The greatest thing has been the sharing of knowledge,” said EMG chairman Michael Sly, standing in a field filled with mustard seeds, as he explained how this crack unit brought UK mustard harvests back to life. Supported by Unilever, which owns the Colman’s brand (and Maille, too) the EMG has gone from strength to strength since 2007 and harvest levels for 2014 are on an upward trend, approaching 1997 levels – considered a boom time for mustard.
That’s obviously good news for Colman’s, which has a long, rich history. Starting in 1814 (it’s celebrating its 200th birthday this year), Colman’s bought rival mustard maker Keen Robinson (it’s where the term ‘keen as mustard’ comes from) in 1903 before merging with Reckitt in 1938. Unilever acquired Colman’s in 1995, yet the equipment in the factory hasn’t changed since the 1950s, when the site was rebuilt following a devastating fire. It’s got serious retro charm, particularly a wood and metal contraption that whirred, pumped and rattled away, sorting thousands of seeds every hour, as it’s done for the last 64 years.
“The modern stuff isn’t any better,” said our guide. “You could do more tonnage, maybe, but this meets our capability. So you’d be spending money without getting anything for it. This is as hi-tech as we go.”
Everyone involved with the ongoing creation of Colman’s mustard was obviously, and justifiably, proud of it. I’m already looking forward to the next time I accidentally put too much vibrant yellow mustard on my ham sandwich and it burns straight through my nose - that’s when you know you’ve got just the right amount.
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