Skip to main content

Mustard shortage in France: “France without mustard is like France without wine!”

 


France is experiencing a shortage of mustard – la moutarde. Dijon mustard, to be precise. 

 

French chef Pierre Grandgirard says that “France without mustard is like France without wine.” He had to resort to asking for donations of pots of mustard from his restaurant guests or importing it from friends and retailers overseas. 

 

The shortage is, in part, due to depressing harvests of mustard seed in 2021 in France and Canada. Fortunately, this year – 2022 – the French harvests have been described as exceptionally good, and Canadian mustard seed cultivators are expecting to more than double their output this year, from 50,000 tons in 2021 to 115,000 tons, reports FRANCE 24. This increase is expected to end the mustard drought by the end of the year.

 

There are other factors too, such as climate and the war in Ukraine. France used to be a major producer of mustard seed (Brassica juncea), which is the base for Dijon mustard, but the cultivation moved to Canada, which now accounts for about 80% of the French supply. With the 2021 heatwave over Alberta and Saskatchewan, the production of mustard seed halved. The milder than usual winter also resulted in infestations of insects in the fields, reducing the harvest.  

 

Russia and Ukraine are large mustard seed producers, mainly cultivating the midler, yellow mustard seed – a variety that the French don’t typically consume.  The war in Ukraine halted that production, which meant that consumers of the mild variety turned to the Dijon mustard, increasing its demand. 

 

French residents were shocked and angered to hear the news of the shortage and resorted to desperation to get their hands on the condiment. They resorted to hoarding and breaking the rule of ‘one pot per customer’ at the supermarkets (with some customers buying up to 10 pots each). 

 

Each French person consumes, on average, one kilogram of mustard per year. Pierre Grandgirard, the owner and head-chef of the La Régate restaurant in Brittany, says he specialises in seafood platters and traditional ‘steak frites’ salad, and that people like to have mustard with their steaks. His restaurant goes through an average of 5 kilograms of mustard per month. His plea to the public in May for help in stocking his restaurant with mustard received a good response. “People called me from everywhere, from all over Europe, and offered me some mustard.” He initially received 35-40 pots of mustard which supplied him until July. 









 

MARTINA NICOLLS

MartinaNicollsWebsite

 

Martinasblogs

Publications

Facebook

Paris Website

Animal Website

Flower Website

SUBSCRIBE TO MARTINA NICOLLS FOR NEWS AND UPDATES 


MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author  of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That
1 comment
Read more

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass
Post a Comment
Read more

The Beggars' Strike by Aminata Sow Fall: book review

The Beggar’sStrike (1979 in French and 1981 in English) is set in an unstated country in West Africa in a city known only as The Capital. Undoubtedly, Senegalese author Sow Fall writes of her own experiences. It was also encapsulated in the 2000 film, Battu , directed by Cheick Oumar Sissoko from Mali. Mour Ndiaye is the Director of the Department of Public Health and Hygiene, with the opportunity of a distinguished and coveted promotion to Vice-President of the Republic. Tourism has declined and the government blames the local beggars in The Capital. Ndiaye must rid the streets of beggars, according to a decree from the Minister. Ndiaye instructs his department to carry out weekly raids. One of the raids leads to the death of lame beggar, Madiabel, who ran into an oncoming vehicle as he tried to escape, leaving two wives and eight children. Soon after, another raid resulted in the death of the old well-loved, comic beggar Papa Gorgui Diop. Enough is enou
8 comments
Read more