Page 149 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL SUMMER 2019 PORTUGAL

We don’t fare much better with the cheese plate But back to mustard and our descent into crime.
distinctions. For some reason, Chef Nicholas was The tour in Beaune was led by Baptiste Quinard, a
helping out the waiters that night and in very broken dapper 40-something guide who, part of the year, also
English tried to explain to us which cheese was what. conducts wine tours in South Africa. The mustard tour
Finally, he wrote down the varieties we were tasting in started out in the Moutarderie’s courtyard and
my notebook: Bleu de la Marre, Reblochen, Tomme des continued on inside the factory. There were 27 visitors
Savoie, Chevre Cendre, and good ol’ Brie. that morning and Baptiste split his exposition between
All were delicious. We cleaned off the entire plate in French and English. For every ten sentences in French
less than five minutes, which Nicholas found very we got two in English.
amusing. When Jody asked him, “What else should we The tour was a mishmash of mustard history, Fallot
order,” he suggested an herb and garlic cottage history and procedural notes about mustard-making.
cheese and zucchini with some kind of gingerbread It turns out that mustard seeds have been cultivated
and goat cheese. for thousands of years. There’s a reference to mustard
Nearly two hours later we finished the meal by literally seeds in the Bible; they are part of Hindu mythology.
licking our “fondant au chocolat” dessert plates clean. And a recipe for mustard can be found in a Roman
Our waiter, who could have been Johnny Depp’s twin, cookbook from the 4th century.
looked at us with mock horror and said, “Don’t eat the Since those ancient times, mustard has been made by
plates.”
mixing the seeds and other spices with vinegar. Dijon
When we staggered out into the Dijon evening, has been a mustard hub since at least the 14th century,
sometime after 10:00, La Menuiserie was still packed but what put Dijon on the mustard map was when, in
and people were waiting to get in. 1856, a local guy, Jean Naigeon, substituted the

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