Must-Read Mustard

My boyfriend and I participate in a medieval living history group called the SCA. A large part of our activities involve re-creating art, object, and most importantly: food. My boyfriend is a fighter, and lover of all things fighting. He is knowledgeable in the history of fighting and armies and armor. He is a patron of the arts....whether he likes it or not, because he lives with ME. He and I had a discussion a few years ago about him finding his art; another dimension to his living history experience. He went to a collegium and took several classes on varying topics. He came back with a desire to create mustard. He wasn't interested in cooking or food, just mustard. I took what I could get and encouraged him further.

I am proud to show off his very first (hopefully not his last) entry into the arts re-creation side of medieval history. He presented this, with my prodding and formatting assistance, in display at our Spring Coronation event. I believe that it was well received, if not only for a good laugh, but the mustard was pretty good too.

Lumbard mustard

Sa'id ibn-Ali ibn-Yussef al-Maghibi

Spring coronation XLIX.

This is my first arts & sciences!!

I mentioned I wanted to learn mustard, I took a class, then my lady Eilon made me do this....   I love her.  And this is what happened......

I decided to try to make Lumbard Mustard from "Pleyn Delit"

The authors redaction is thus:

1/4 cup of honey 2 oz finely ground dried mustard

1tbsp wine vinegar

3 tbsp red wine

Warm honey, then mix all ingredients together. Note that the sauce will be far more liquid when it is still warm than it will be when it cools to room temperature.

I ground a 1/4 cup of yellow mustard in a mortar and pestle.  Then I added the red wine, and vinegar that my lady makes.  Then mixed it together while waiting for the honey to warm on the double boiler.  Once the honey warmed I mixed it into the mix and I let it set over night to taste.   The author stated that there are some spices to add to the mix for taste, but I found that to complicated... after all I am a simple man who just wanted to know about mustard, how did I get conned into this, why does this happen to me, ALL I WANTED TO KNOW WAS ABOUT MUSTARD!  Now I have mustard powder in my eyes, on my glasses, my cat is crying, I am crying. 

Here is a picture of the stuff I used.

After letting it sit for almost two days, you are tasting it now.  After one night of sitting in the fridge, it did mellow but not by much, still pretty spicy. 
 Ta-da! 

Source:

Hieatt, Constance B., and Sharon Butler. Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1976. (Gives original and modern versions of the recipes _and_ provides suggested menus.)



And here is a picture of his display: