Mustard in Literature and Arts

• Alexandre Dumas
• Shakespeare
• Hans Christian Andersen
• John Lennon

Alexandre Dumas, author of The Count of Monte Cristo, The Man in the Iron Mask. and The Three Musketeers, wrote a charming treatise on mustard in 1873 as part of his Grand Dictionary of Cuisine. Although the article turns out to be a thinly disguised advertisement for one of the many mustard makers of Dijon, it contains several interesting historical claims, one connected to the King, and another connected to the Pope.

Louis XI, said Dumas, kept his own pot of mustard with him most of the time, ostensibly to keep him well prepared when he dropped in on friends unannounced.

Another story centered on Pope John XXII, during the time the papacy was located in Avignon France. He was said to be highly appreciative of fine foods, especially mustard. Included in his household was a nephew (one considered to be not of much use). The Pope named this nephew his premier moutardier, or head mustard-maker. Presumably from this appointment came the French phrase: " Se croire le premier moutardier du pape," (he thinks himself the Pope’s head mustard-maker), addressed nowadays towards people thought to be foolishly conceited.

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GRUMIO:

I cannot tell; I fear 'tis choleric.

What say you to a piece of beef and mustard?

KATHARINA:

A dish that I do love to feed upon.

GRUMIO:

Ay, but the mustard is too hot a little.     [25]

KATHARINA:

Why then, the beef, and let the mustard rest.

GRUMIO:

Nay then, I will not: you shall have the mustard,

Or else you get no beef of Grumio.

KATHARINA:

Then both, or one, or any thing thou wilt.

GRUMIO:

Why then, the mustard without the beef.     [30]

KATHARINA:

Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave,

[Beats him]

That feed'st me with the very name of meat:

Sorrow on thee and all the pack of you,

That triumph thus upon my misery!

Go, get thee gone, I say.     [35]

TOUCHSTONE

Of a certain knight that swore by his honour they

were good pancakes and swore by his honour the

mustard was naught: now I'll stand to it, the

pancakes were naught and the mustard was good, and

yet was not the knight forsworn.

CELIA

How prove you that, in the great heap of your

knowledge?

ROSALIND

Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom.

TOUCHSTONE

Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and

swear by your beards that I am a knave.

CELIA

By our beards, if we had them, thou art.

TOUCHSTONE

By my knavery, if I had it, then I were; but if you

swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn: no

more was this knight swearing by his honour, for he

never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away

before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard.

Mustard-seed is the name of one of the fairies:

"She then called four of her fairies. Their names were
Peas-blossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustard-seed. "

His wit is as thick as Tewkesbury mustard.

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"The sixth glass! Yes, in that glass sits a demon, in the form of a little, well dressed, attractive and very fascinating man, who thoroughly understands you, agrees with you in everything, and becomes quite a second self to you. He has a lantern with him, to give you light as he accompanies you home. There is an old legend about a saint who was allowed to choose one of the seven deadly sins, and who accordingly chose drunkenness, which appeared to him the least, but which led him to commit all the other six. The man's blood is mingled with that of the demon. It is the sixth glass, and with that the germ of all evil shoots up within us; and each one grows up with a strength like that of the grains of mustard-seed, and shoots up into a tree, and spreads over the whole world: and most people have no choice but to go into the oven, to be re-cast in a new form.

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Mean Mister Mustard sleeps in the park

Shaves in the dark trying to save paper

Sleeps in a hole in the road

Saving up to buy some clothes

Keeps a ten-bob note up his nose

Such a mean old man

Such a mean old man

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