Making Mustard in Dijon

Chris was annoyed that I didn’t want to stop in Dijon. I was annoyed that Chris wanted to stop in Dijon. It was more or less on our route from Provence back home to Brussels, but ugh, I was tired of being in the car and ready to be home.

Surprise: we stopped.

The kids and I half-heartedly trudged along after Chris. It was a Sunday afternoon, so everything was closed. We walked by a showroom for my favorite French mustard, the kind I can only get at the expensive international grocery store. It was closed. Sad.

But Dijon was really cute and it was nice to have a walk, so we went in search of ice cream. We touched the Dijon Owl for good luck (Isaac wouldn’t do it—no good luck for him!), peeked in the cathedral, and headed toward the main square—

WHAT IS THAT?! A poster caught my eye for a mustard-making workshop and tasting sponsored by Edmond Fallot, ma moutarderie prefere. “I mean, I thought you didn’t want to be here long…?” Chris said to my retreating back as I practically sprinted over to the tourism information office to see if there were any available slots. There were! In just 45 minutes! Enough for all of us and the kids were even free! Take my money!

We looped over to admire the main square, get the kids some ice cream, explore some side streets, enjoy the nice weather.

Then it was time for our workshop. I really enjoyed this. First of all, the lady from the tourism office who lead the workshop was annoyed with my low level of French as she asked me to go find Chris and Eloise in the bathroom and tell them to hurry up. She was absolutely not into the workshop at all. There was only one other person attending, a really friendly Swedish woman, and we kept cracking up about the same things as we stumbled through French and tried to interpret the French to each other throughout the mustard-making. The tour was firmly not in English even though English seemed to be the only common language between anyone. I do like that about the French.

After a quick rundown on the history of mustard (did you know ancient Egyptians loved mustard?) Chris and I agreed that talking about food, history and travel hit the sweet spot of the things we’re able to understand in French. Thank you, French class!

Did you know there is currently a mustard shortage?? Mustard seed crops in Canada (where a lot of French companies purchase their seeds) were adversely affected by weather last year, and crops in Europe have been affected this year. There are limits to how much mustard you can buy in France!

But you don’t need a lot of French to grind mustard seeds, add spices and vinegar, and compliment each other’s ground mustard seeds. Let it sit for 10 days, then enjoy your hand-made, tasty mustard.

Now for the mustard tasting! We got to try regular ground mustard, mustard with cassis liquor, and mustard with pain d’espices (literally ‘spiced bread’). The last one tasted a little like ginger bread and was everyone’s favorite for the most part. I asked the guide which was her favorite and she informed us she doesn’t like mustard. She works for the tourism office in Dijon, France, and was leading a mustard workshop… and doesn’t like mustard. This made the Swedish woman and I laugh really hard, and the guide laughed too before telling us to leave. The entire workshop took less than 45 minutes and cost $5-10 per adult. Perfect!

We came out of the atelier into a beautiful evening. Music floated through the streets near the cathedral—a young woman on an accordion played several of the kids’ favorites from the Amelie soundtrack—and Eloise got some euros to drop into the proffered hat. We almost made it back to the car when we spotted a tourist shop and bought a bunch more mustard to add to the other edible souvenirs in our car, which thankfully had not exploded while we were making mustard. And since it was just a few days after the summer solstice, we still got home before dark!