Mustard is illegal where I Iive. Possession, and especially consumption, of mustard carries the possible maximum penalty of death. All because of, what we now call, The Mustard Wars of 1473. It started as a simple trade dispute between some merchants that never really got resolved. The dispute festered for years till another slight, imagined or real no one really knows, occurred and all out war broke out. While there is much to be said about the war and warfare itself not much survived as far as why it really started. But in the end mustard was made illegal and has stayed so for centuries.
Oddly, a very similar war was fought in Mexico over mayonnaise almost four centuries later. I guess it was more a series of skirmishes than a war, but it was a fairly important conflict.
There were obviously other geopolitical factors at play, but it was largely symbolic resistance to European/ white influence on a country with massively changing demographics. In the spring of 1856, indigenous forces tried to block a large shipment of goods coming out of Spain. The freight consisted of a lot of different goods intended to provide a more "European" lifestyle for the elites in Mexico. While only a small portion of it was actually mayonnaise, it turned into a bit of a rallying cry for a movement trying to resist the influx of white oppressors who were turning into the ruling class.
Eventually the resistance forces captured an artillery battery and were able to shell the incoming freight ship, sinking it before it got to the harbor. While it obviously didn't stop the European influence, it became a folk legend and a rallying cry for Mexican pride. To this day, you can still see "Sinko de Mayo" celebrations commemorating the event.
I'm not a huge mustard fan, so imagine my surprise when I tried mustard soup in the Netherlands and it was amazing. The mill where they ground the mustard was right next door. It was like a cheese soup almost. Creamy, tart, spicy. So good. All of the Dutch mustard was, including with the bitterballen.
I'll say this, Europeans know how to make a soup base that can accommodate any number of ingredients. Some of the best soup I've ever had was just from a big vat of pea soup at a university dining hall in Brussels.
Why, how everyone eats it of course. I open a fresh bottle and stick a straw into it and go to town. How do you eat mustard op?
To answer seriously, mustard is either a condiment on a sandwich or could be a dipping sauce for meat, usually ham. It can be added into a vinnegrete salad dressing too.
Of course everyone knows about deviled eggs, but mustard as a flavor paste and an adhesive for any number of coatings used to be very popular. Older cookbooks reference it principally for reheating leftover meats.
I smear it all over my lower body where my tongue can reach, then lick it off, yelling "Who's your daddy now, bitch!" at the top of my lungs. B-52's "Love Shack" must be playing in the background.
Copiously. I have yellow, dijon, whole grain, dill pickle, and horseradish mustard in the fridge. Put it on sandwiches, add it to mac and cheese, dip stuff in it, whatever.
Buy it from the Polish deli down the street, usually whole grain with some white wine in the ingredients (they label this French style). Spread it on some hearty bread together with Winiary majonez and meat of choice (pastrami is great, so is kielbasa). Toast some swiss or muenster cheese on there if I've got it. Polish pickles on the side, or maybe on the sandwich.
Get honey mustard packets from Arby's (because stupid Marzetti apparently doesn't sell bottles anymore) and dip chicken fingers/nuggets in it.
What I should do: Join the mustard of the month club at the local cheese shop. They always have interesting varieties like curry mustard or bourbon mustard.
Spicy. I guess it's similar to wasabi (some cheaper brands of both are even basically the same thing made with horseradish). You don't need much, don't squirt it on like American mustard. But it goes really well with red meat, or on a ham sandwich.
I often make some salad dressing with mustard: crushed garlic, chopped garden thyme, vinegar, oil, mustard, salt, MSG, honey/brown sugar. Put all of them into a bottle and shake it well, let it rest for two days.
I also add a bit of mustard to the potato mash, or as a condiment over hot dogs and wieners.
Mustard greens are also delicious as frittata filling. Just make sure to wilt them beforehand, otherwise you'll get scrambled eggs instead.
(I have no idea on what people use mustard for, where I live. I guess over French fries and hot dogs?)
I put just a small spoonful in when I make mac and cheese. Besides an interesting flavor addition, it has something in it (lecethin?) that helps the sauce come together nice and smooth.
Yellow mustard on corndogs, Yellow mixed with ketchup to make "orange sauce" for burgers and hot dogs , spicy brown on polish sausage or cold-cut sandwiches.
Burgers, hot dogs, onion rings, kielbasa, the -wursts, sweet mustard on German Pretzels; goes into several salad dressings, marinades, or things like egg salads; sandwiches, corn dogs...I'm sure there's more I just can't think of it.
I love mustard. I always have several varieties: Yellow, Dijon, stone-ground, and powdered. I usually put it on cold cut wraps, but there's plenty of recipes that call for it, too.
Every once in a while I get a weird craving for it and end up using it as a dip, just straight mustard, for most of my meals for like a week straight until the craving goes away.
Usually on a ham sandwich. But I've also used mustard powder to make honey mustard sauce and as part of a dry rub for seasoning meat before cooking it.
I don't eat it when I'm in vata-metabolism, but love it otherwise, on savory or heavy foods.
If you happen to be in one of the fundamental metabolisms ( kapha, pitta, or vata ), then doing the experiment of making a meal with pairs of dishes, 1 of only-pacifying-for-your-metabolism ingredients, & the other of that pair with only-aggravating-for-your-metabolism ingredients, using the ingredients-lists in David Frawley's "Ayurvedic Healing, then if you've enough health-sense ( some block it, or don't have any ), then you will probably find the differences between how your body's spirit reacts to the different dishes in each pair-of-dishes to be astonishing.
IF you do the experiment & find the results are a whole-life-scale wakeup-call, as I did, then the next book to get, to increase one's understanding of the fundamental metabolisms, and how they work, is Frawley & Kozak's "Yoga For Your TYPE" book.
Between those 2 books, anyone who has a definite metabolic-process-lopsidedness, and finds that the competence offered in those 2 books is on-point, can have much easier health & healing throughout the rest of their lives.
It is entirely possible, through wrong diet, wrong health, etc, to lock one's life into kapha-metabolism ( which is the real root of the "obesity epidemic": it's a kapha-metabolism epidemic, and obesity is only the symptom of it ).
I've learned that kaphas generally don't bother investing in spiritual-leverage, the same as deaf people don't consume music, much.
I actively broke my lifelong ultra-vata, then less than 3y later, accidentally broke my pitta into pure-kapha, through incorrect fasting ( sensation-of-hunger pushes one's unconscious to switch from any other metabolism into kapha, the famine-survival metabolism ).
I broke that pure-kapha deliberately, as quickly as possible, and now am in a mixed metabolism, which changes chaotically.
Most just remain stuck in the one they were born into, or gradually drift, in old-age, into vata, or wreck their health with kapha at some point, & stay there...
It's cause, however, is a mixture of unconscious-mind "posture" and epigenetics, from the looks of the evidence this-life has put in my face.
Unconscious-fear-of-hunger drives the switch to kapha, unconscious-certainty-that-only-ACTION-is-valid pushes one to switch into more pitta, & unconscious-certainty-that-only-spirit-energies-are-valid pushes towards vata-switching.
the pairs-of-dishes-with-opposite-ingredients experiment can't work on anybody with a mixture of all-3 metabolisms: none of the dishes is going to be horribly-wrong or amazingly-right, compared with its pair, if they're both prepared well, so no contrast will be eye-opening, therefore, for them, no evidence will exist for such process-lopsidednesses.
Bit of a tangent, but suddenly-discovering that I hated orange-juice & loved baked-corn-tortilla ( when I switched to kapha, 1 of the times that happened ), was astonishing.
Same as suddenly discovering, for the 1st time in my life, that it actually was possible for it to be "too hot to do any work", as pitta-metabolism did to me, but vata never had ( I'd thought all who said such things were being dishonest, because it hadn't been real/possible for me to reach that experience .. vatas are always cold, usually )
Also, differentiate between sweet mustard vs unsweet mustard: the sweet will get vata more interested, the unsweet .. just won't be popular among 'em.