SC - Poppa's mustard (recipe #1 - Platina red)

[Nick Sasso]

My belief is built on the directions in the recipe to 'have it ground'
and references in Scully's "Art of Cookery" (IIRC) that travelling
spicers would bring spices for the manors, and that spicers in
marketplaces would also do so.  I also belief from reading and
experience that one can get a VERY fine grind with a mortar and pestle
given patience and muscle.  Bolting will serve to give an even finer
product based on the weave of the bolting cloth.  Consider the fine
flour needed for breads.  It starts as a rather large, husked seed, and
can come out very fine in a grist mill.  Le Menagier also talks of
buying whole spices rather than pre ground, but commends the wife to buy
prepared mustard, so that is a wash.

Given time and effort, I have gotten a fairly fine grind on the mustard
seed.  I don't have an enormous mortar as a large kitchen must certainly
have had (compared to my 8 ounce jobber), but I can get .5 to one cup of
fine mustard over several hours of work with mortar and FINE sieve.  I
end up regrinding a lot.  Does that help?  I can get page and source
reference next week if desired.

Also know that oxygen will react with compounds in the mustard to make
it hotter.  that is one reason, I suspect, that aging smoothes the
taste.  the oxygenated compounds degrade and resemble the more natural
ones in the mustard.

niccolo

Jenne Heise wrote:
> 
> > A key phrase is ". . . and have it ground".  Not begging any questions
> > since I, too, ground my first couple of mustard flours, but it is quite
> > apropos to get pre ground mustard flour to use as ingredient since the
> > spicers in much of medieval Europe would have been doing the grinding
> > for us.
> 
> Can I ask for further elaboration?
> 
> Because I've been wondering about that very subject. Sarah Garland, in
> _The Complete Book of Herbs and Spices_ says "The way to reduce mustard
> seed to fine flour was only discovered in the mind-18th century; before
> that the seed was pounded as needed in a mustard quern,or the pounded seed
> was mixed with honey, vinegar and spices and formed into balls that could
> be stored until needed." On the other hand, Plat says, "It is usuall in
> Venice to sell the meal of Mustard in their markets as we doe flower and
> meale in England," but he then says, "but it would be much stronger and
> finer, if the husks or huls were first divided by searce or boulter: which
> may easily be done, if you dry your seeds against the fire before you
> grinde them. " Which is a bit confusing. My theory is that the smooth
> ground mustard powder that is available from modern merchants is probably
> not accurate: what you get when you grind it yourself (in mortar or coffee
> grinder, at least) is of a much rougher texture.
> 
> If you have more information to justify the use of modern mustard 'flour',
> I'd feel a lot more comfortable (because I admit to using half-and-half
> handground and commercial mustard powder in my mustard).
> 
> Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise        jenne at tulgey.browser.net
> disclaimer: i speak for no-one and no-one speaks for me.
>    "My hands are small I know, but they're not yours, they are my own"
> 
> ============================================================================
> 
> To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
> Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".
> 
> ============================================================================