[Sca-cooks] Grinding mustard seed

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

> ><SNIP> If you are doing a large quantity of these, you might try one of
> the Japanese > mortar and pestles (for a small quantity, this is not a
> good idea as all the mustard
> > gets stuck in the ridges).  > I think most of the other recipes call
> for grinding the mustard dry.
>
> Yeah, most recipes call for 'grinding' seeds with other ingredients, or
> do not mention one way or the other.  So, using staggering logic, I
> assume that since a couple mention to soak the seeds, that the default
> would be dry.  Unless the Goodman mentions soaking as a lesson for the
> accepted means of grinding the seed used be everyone else.  Staggering.

I collected all the recipes I could find here:
http://www.lehigh.edu/%7Ejahb/herbs/Mustards.html
Many of them explicitly recommend grinding the mustard dry, others say to
add the vinegar afterward, so I'd say the default is dry.

> I'll hunt for a Japanese mortar . . . ideas where to find one to look at
> so I know what I an actually hunting?

Most chinese/japanese food stores will have them. It's a semi-conical
bowl, ridged on the inside, glazed on the outside, with a wooden, tapered
cylindrical pestle. Adamantius can probably tell us what they are called,
because I've forgotten. The cool thing is that they are usually much
cheaper than the ceramic or marble M&P's.

> I have found my little Braun electric grinder is okay, and certainly
> best so far.  To get fine enough for what I want, I get that little bit
> of almost cooked paste in the bottom.  No awful, but not at all what I
> want.

The problem may indeed be that you are grinding too fine; in my little
mills, I run it for 2 or 3 minutes, or until I can hear that it is ground.
This makes a mustard meal, not a flour.

>I do know of the mill in
> Menagier, and have no good example of one, except that it is likely
> similar to the hand crank coffee mills somehow.

I know that some places sell querns (such as Parkinson recommends) and
that might work better. There's a place that sells reproductions of
early British querns but I don't know where it is.

> > Pre-ground mustard flour isn't really period, as the bolting process
> used
> > for mustard flour was invented in the late 17th/early 18th century.
> > Stone-ground mustard meal is a good approximation. <<SNIP>>- Jadwiga
> Zajaczkowa
>
> I would be most appreciative of your documentation of the bolting
> process for mustard in that time period.  That would be a nice addition
> to my (already lengthy) discussion of mustard seed and processing.
> Pre-ground mustard is, by definition, mustard seed that was ground by
> someone before you buy it.  The fineness that I get in the little tub is
> admittedly probably better than I would get at a spicer who is paying
> someone to grind up the seeds, but I was/am willing to accept that
> difference in the absence of superior product or machine.  The coffee
> mill above does not get us any more 'period' <shudder>, so the circle
> continues.

The really fine mustard flour that I get in the little tubs is definitely
boulted (like bread flour) to get that fineness. I don't know what you are
picking up in the tubs, but the only mention of a flour-like ground
mustard is 'mustard meal' that I have found.

this is from my handout: does it help?
'Nowadays we buy mustard flour, ground in the same manner as wheat flour,
but Sarah Garland in The complete book of herbs and spices, and Rosetta
Clarkson in Magic Gardens: A modern chronicle of herbs and savory seeds,
say that mustard flour was not invented until the 18th century (1700's).
Instead, you could buy mustard meal in some places: Plat's Delights for
Ladies says: "It is usuall in Venice to sell the meal of Mustard in their
markets as we doe flower and meale in England: this meale, by the addition
of vinegar, in two or three daies becommeth exceeding good mustard."
(Apparently he liked his mustard mild too.) But mostly you ground it at
home, either with a mortar & pestle or with a mill in later times. You
could also buy your mustard sauce ready-made, if you lived in the city: Le
menagier de Paris directs the reader to buy "At the sauce-maker, a quart
of cameline for the dinner, and for supper two quarts of mustard. " '

> I would also appreciate anything you have suggesting what species of
> seed was likely in use in southern Europe or Western Europe.  What I
> read in Gerard's Herbal seemed to suggest that what is modernly marketed
> as yellow mustard is possibly the mustard seed of his time and place.
> Bear might be the "answer man" on this botanical history.

I will check the sources I have. I do recall that my sources mention 2
kinds, black and 'white' and consider black the best (as Digby does) but I
have to look at them to give you more info.

-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa   jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
"The art of losing isn't hard to master;/so many things seem filled with
the intent/to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster/of lost door keys, the hour
badly spent." -- "One Art", Elizabeth Bishop