Mon Dieu! The French have run out of mustard

PARIS – Mustard is deeply rooted in French culture.

“My blood boils” is translated into French with the expression “La moutarde me monte au nez” (“Mustard gets on my nose”), and as evidenced on Bastille Day, when it happens in France, the effect can be devastating …

As France celebrated its most important national holiday on Thursday, commemorating the 1789 assault on the Bastille fortress prison that started the French Revolution, the mysterious disappearance of mustard from supermarket shelves has caused, if not riots, at least one deep concern.

Deprived of the seasoning that gives flavor to a fried steak, life to a grilled sausage, depth to a vinaigrette, and mayonnaise richness, France is looking for alternatives in quiet desperation.

Horseradish, wasabi, Worcestershire sauce, and even Roquefort creams or shallots have emerged as contenders.

Poor contenders, it must be said.

The problem is that Dijon mustard is as irreplaceable as it is indispensable.

Single-grade butter or cream may be more essential to French cuisine, but many rich sauces wilt and go tasteless without mustard.

In Lyon, the idea of ​​a chorizo-type sausage, or andouillette, without its mustard sauce is as inconceivable as cheese without wine.

Another problem, it turns out, is that Dijon mustard is largely made up of ingredients that don’t come from that beautiful capital of the Burgundy region.

A perfect storm of climate change, a European war, COVID-19 supply problems and rising costs they left the French producers without the seeds browns that make their own mustard, mustard.

Most of those brown seeds – at least 80 percent of them, according to Luc Vandermaesen, director of the large mustard producer Reine de Dijon and president of the Burgundy Mustard Association – come from Canada.

A heat wave over the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, which scientists say would have been “virtually impossible” without global warming, has reduced the 50% seed production last year, as rising temperatures hit the smallest crop in Burgundy hard.

“The main problem is climate change and the result is this scarcity,” Vandermaesen said in an interview.

“We are unable to respond to the orders we receive and the retail prices has risen up to 25% which reflects the very high cost of the seeds “.

His business now receives at least 50 calls a day from mustard seekers.

There were no such calls before the mustard disappeared.

People even arrive at the company’s headquarters in Dijon (not a retail operation) in a frantic search for mustard.

Carrefour, one of the largest French and international hypermarket chains, was forced to deny the rampant rumors on Twitter that accumulation of mustard to drive up prices.

Chefs like Pierre Grandgirard in Brittany have turned to online research any leftover mustard that someone can have.

In most stores, the mustard shelves have already been emptied.

Where mustard is available, some signs say that sales are “limited to one dish per person”.

Intermarché, a retailer, apologizing for the inconvenience caused, explains in another poster on a shelf that “a drought in Canada” and the “conflict between Ukraine and Russia” have created the “shortage” of mustard, as they call it. French. .

For the French, proud of their mustard, the idea that it is rarely an entirely local product and that more often depends on the type of multinational supply chain interrupted by the pandemic was also a challenge. shock.

The war in Ukraine has further complicated matters.

Russia and Ukraine are major producers of mustard seeds, but generally not brown seeds, either brassicajuncea, used in the classic Dijon mustard.

The mainly yellow seeds produced in the two warring countries are popular in countries, including Germany and Hungary, which favor a more delicate seasoning.

As yellow mustard seeds have been victims of war, prompting countries that depend on them to seek out other types of mustard, the “Pressure in the mustard market in general, it has increased, driving prices up, ”Vandermaesen said.

France consumes about 1 kilo of mustard per year per inhabitant, making it the largest consumer in the world.

Although there are signs of impending shortages in other countries, including Germany, the French mustard crisis is unique in its scale, in part because France relies heavily Canada for your seeds

In the crisis, of course, there is an opportunity.

Paul-Olivier Claudepierre, co-owner of Martin-Pouret, an entirely French supplier of mustards and vinegars, told the newspaper Le Monde that it was time to transfer production.

“We grow, thousands of miles away, a seed that we will collect, we will take to a port, we will transport it by ocean in containers, to turn it into a home,” he said.

“It costs a lot, and what a huge carbon toll!”

Vandermaesen said Burgundy made a concerted effort to increase production, even though it could not match “the very large production areas of Alberta and Saskatchewan”.

One of the problems facing Burgundy growers is that the European Union has banned an insecticide long used to combat the black flea beetle scourge.

For now, it seems, France must learn to live without mustard, a painful adjustment.

Marie Antoinette, the queen of France at the time of the revolution, is said to have remarked: “Let them eat the cake” when told of hungry peasants without bread.

Whether he really did, before being guillotined in 1793, is another question.

“Let them eat wasabi” is a phrase that the French president would probably do well to avoid Emanuele Macron.

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