Mustard is rooted in French culture. “My blood boiled” is translated into French by the expression “La moutarde me monte au nez” (“The mustard rose to my nose”) – and, as the anniversary of the Bastille Day proves, when this happens in France the effect can be devastating.
As France celebrated its most important national holiday on Thursday, recalling the storming of the Bastille fortress prison in 1789 that sparked the French Revolution, the mysterious disappearance of mustard from market shelves caused, if not outrage, at least deep disquiet.
Deprived of the spice that makes a steak with fries, life to a grilled sausage, depth to a vinaigrette and richness to mayonnaise, France has been looking for alternatives with a contained desperation. Horseradish, wasabi, Worcestershire sauce, and even roquefort or chive creams emerged as candidates.
Poor candidates, it must be said. The problem is that Dijon mustard is as irreplaceable as it is indispensable. First-rate butter or cream may be more essential to French cooking, but many unctuous sauces become tasteless without mustard. In Lyon, the idea of an “andouillette” (sausage for giblets) without it is as inconceivable as cheese without wine.
Another problem, it seems, is that Dijon mustard is largely made up of ingredients that don’t come from this charming city, capital of the Burgundy region. A perfect storm of climate change, war in Europe, supply problems caused by Covid and rising costs have left growers without the brown seeds that make their mustard “the” mustard.
Most of them – at least 80%, according to Luc Vandermaesen, director of the Reine de Dijon and president of the Burgundy Mustard Association – come from Canada. A heat wave in the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan cut seed production by 50% last year, as rising temperatures hit the smaller harvest in Burgundy hard.
“The main issue is climate change, and the result is this shortage,” says Vandermaesen. “We can’t respond to the orders we receive, and retail prices have gone up as much as 25%.”
His company now receives at least 50 calls a day from people looking for mustard — there weren’t that many before it disappeared. People flock to the company’s headquarters in Dijon (which isn’t even a retail operation) in a frantic search for the condiment. Carrefour has been forced to deny rumors on Twitter that it is stocking up on mustard to raise prices. Chefs like Pierre Grandgirard in Brittany have resorted to the online appeal for whatever leftovers someone might have.
In most stores, the shelves have emptied. Where there is still mustard, signs say sales are “limited to one jar per person.” Retailer Intermarché, apologizing for the inconvenience, explains on another sign that “drought in Canada and conflict with Russia” led to “penury”.
For those who pride themselves on their “moutarde”, the notion that it is rarely a fully local product and often relies on the pandemic-ravaged multinational supply chain was also a shock.
The Ukrainian War further complicated matters. Moscow and Kiev are major producers of the plant’s seeds, but generally not the brown ones (Brassica juncea) used in classic Dijon. The yellow seeds produced there are popular in places like Germany and Hungary, which prefer a milder spice. With the war, countries that depend on them went looking for other types and the “pressure in this market in general increased, raising prices”, says Vandermaesen.
On average, each French person consumes 2.2 kg of mustard per year, the largest consumer in the world. While there are indications of impending shortages in other countries, the French mustard crisis is unique in its dimensions.
In the crisis lies the opportunity, of course. Paul-Olivier Claudepierre, co-owner of Martin-Pouret, a supplier of all-French mustards and vinegars, told Le Monde that the time had come to “relocate production”.
“We cultivate, thousands of kilometers away, a seed that we are going to harvest, take to a port and transport across the ocean in containers to transform it here”, he says. “That costs a lot and a lot of carbon.”
Vandermaesen says Burgundy has embarked on a joint effort to increase production. One problem facing local farmers is that the European Union has banned an insecticide long used to combat the black flea beetle pest.
For now, it seems, France must learn to live without mustard, a painful adaptation. Marie Antoinette, the queen at the time of the Revolution, is famous for her comment “Let them eat buns” about starving peasants without bread (whether she actually did so before she was guillotined in 1793 is another matter). “Eat wasabi” is a phrase President Emmanuel Macron should probably avoid.
I am currently a news writer for News Bulletin247 where I mostly cover sports news. I have always been interested in writing and it is something I am very passionate about. In my spare time, I enjoy reading and spending time with my family and friends.
