Grocery Grails: Cutting the Mustard

In the three years I’ve been writing this food blog, I have made no secret of my love of condiments and sauces.  I love visiting new and unfamiliar grocery stores anywhere I go, and there are a few sections and aisles I will always spend my time browsing: the deli, chips and snacks, canned seafood, jarred pickled vegetables, and condiments and sauces.  I am always looking for new taste sensations, especially any products I can’t find locally.

Ask my patient wife — our refrigerator door and pantry are both full to bursting with condiments and sauces, and I am the only one who likes 99% of them.  I’ve been known to plan entire meals around a specific condiment or sauce, and I’ve begged and pleaded with restaurants to sell me some of their unique house-made condiments, salad dressings, etc.  Sometimes they even say yes and hook me up.

But while some condiments have limited uses, like ketchup (burgers, meatloaf, fries, and onion rings; never on hot dogs), mustards are near and dear to my heart because there are infinite brands and varieties, and infinite uses for them.  I freakin’ love mustard.  My dad was from Brooklyn, and we ate a lot of hot dogs growing up, between Hebrew Nationals cooked at home, Sabrett carts that used to be all over Miami, and the legendary Arbetter’s, founded in 1959, which I hope to review some day, on my next visit back to where I grew up.  He always bought Gulden’s Spicy Brown mustard for the house, which is a perfect good, versatile, cheap, everyday mustard for hot dogs, burgers, and so much more.  It isn’t that spicy, though — trust me, everyone else in my family hates all spicy food.  Spicy food turns my dad from brilliant, mild-mannered Dr. Bruce Banner into the Hulk, to the point of making him angry.  (And you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry!)  They all wonder how I got this way, where I love trying interesting, new, and spicy flavors.

Ever since my first apartment in college in the late ’90s, I’ve been cooking for myself, trying to stick to a budget (back then it was a very small budget), but still branching out and trying new things whenever I could, as a treat.  My love of mustards has only grown in the last 20+ years, and now I have a veritable collection.  Some are better spread on different kinds of sandwiches, some on burgers and dogs, some with sausages, some with lamb, some with sardines, some in marinades and dressings… you get the picture.

Hence my newest Saboscrivner feature, a spinoff of my Grocery Grails features where I review different grocery items, called Cutting the Mustard.  In this inaugural Cutting the Mustard feature, I reviewed seven mustards I have at home right now.  (I have more, but I don’t want too many mustards open in the fridge at the same time.  My wife doesn’t like them at all, and I am just one man!)  I timed this piece to be published on Memorial Day weekend, so as we remember and honor our servicemen and servicewomen who made the ultimate sacrifice, you may find yourself at a cookout where hamburgers and hot dogs are being grilled, especially now that people have been getting vaccinated over the last few months.  Since it is becoming safe to gather and share meals with family and friends again, someone may ask you to recommend or even bring a mustard.  You’re welcome!

In an attempt to introduce the scientific method to these mustard reviews, I tried each of them the exact same way, as a control for this taste testing: on some Deutsche Kuche Bavarian soft pretzel sticks, purchased at my favorite grocery store, Aldi.  These aren’t available all the time — just a few times a year when Aldi busts out this private label of German imports.  I always try to stock up on these when I can.  I pronounce the brand name “Douche Cooch,” but you can call it whatever you like. I just heat up the frozen pretzel sticks on a tray in the toaster oven for nine minutes at 350 degrees, and they come out crackly and crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside.  They are way better than you’d think frozen pretzels could possibly be — better than many fresh soft pretzels I’ve had.  Plus, pretzels are a perfect mustard delivery device, so let the grand experiment begin!  On to the mustards!

These are the seven mustards I go on to taste below.  I’ll tell you where I got each one, what I think of them, and what you might want to do with them.

The first mustard I tried is Sir Kensington’s Dijon mustard.  Sir Kensington’s is an excellent brand of mustards, condiments, and salad dressings that tend to be on the pricey side, but I stocked up on several jars on clearance over a year ago, when the late, lamented Lucky’s Market was still open, and I’ve made them last.  Publix puts their products on sale occasionally, so be on the lookout.   I have never been a huge fan of any Dijon mustards for everyday use on things like sandwiches, hot dogs, or burgers, so I wasn’t enamored with a big dollop of Sir Kensington’s Dijon on the soft pretzel here.  If you’ve had the more famous Grey Poupon (but of course!) or even a cheap store-brand Dijon, you know what you’re trying here — smooth texture, a little flavor from white wine, a little spice you can feel in your nostrils.  But I keep this particular mustard on hand for one purpose: LAMB.  Dijon goes so well with the rich and slightly gamey flavor of lamb, which my wife and I both love.  I buy thick-cut lamb loin chops at Costco, rub them with Dijon mustard, sprinkle with salt and pepper and whatever herbs I feel like using, and roast them until they are rare.  It’s a winning flavor combination, and one of the only situations where my wife tolerates any form of mustard.

But not all Dijon is created equal!  Grey Poupon makes a Mild & Creamy Dijon mustard that I tried several years ago when it was on sale, and instantly became obsessed with.  I own about ten bottles of it right now, after snatching up a deeply discounted dozen at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet a while back.  This mustard remedies all of my criticisms about regular Dijon, including regular Grey Poupon.  It’s a fabulous mustard to spread onto most sandwiches: roast beef, turkey, ham, chicken salad, egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches, even an Italian sub, and those are usually better off without mustard.  (Don’t ever sully an Italian sub with yellow mustard!)  Despite the way it looks, the Mild & Creamy Dijon doesn’t have a gritty consistency from the visible seeds, so if that is a turn-off, don’t worry.  I don’t like whole-grain mustards that feel like you’re crunching a mouthful of Nerds either. I don’t think Mild & Creamy Dijon is spicy or pungent enough to complement hot dogs or classic Jewish deli-style sandwiches like pastrami, corned beef, or tongue, where the salted, cured meats usually beg for something tangy, spicy, or garlicky.  But for more everyday sandwiches, it’s a wonderful choice, and I did not mind having some straight up on the soft pretzel.

By the way, it is far too rare when my love of food and my love of hip hop cross over, but did you know there is a long tradition of rappers referencing Grey Poupon in hip hop lyrics, as a symbol of luxury?  It’s true!  Vox published an article and a playlist with 26 songs that reference Grey Poupon mustard over a 25-year period, up to 2016.  I appreciated this to no end, especially as a researcher and pop culture scholar in my day job.  But I digress.

I don’t shop at Walmart often, but sometimes I end up there when I work past 10 PM and other stores have closed, and I always check to see what interesting foods they have that nobody else carries.  Walmart has two private labels: the cheap Great Value, and the more upscale and gourmet Sam’s Choice, which has some pretty tasty, high-quality products, including a whole line of mustards.  I picked up this Sam’s Choice Herb Mustard because it was on clearance for a buck, down from the usual $3-something.  It had less of the tangy pungency that a regular yellow mustard is known for, and the herbs in question are tarragon and garlic, plus white vinegar, white wine vinegar, and mysterious “spices.” I haven’t eaten enough tarragon in my lifetime to confidently, competently describe what it tastes like on its own, and it isn’t terribly garlicky either.  Think of this as a yellow mustard that isn’t as “bright,” tangy, vinegary, or salty as you’re used to from a lifetime of cookouts.   There is an extremely subtle sweetness to it that isn’t there in regular yellow mustard.  I’ve tried it in several sandwiches since my first taste, including with some sardines, and also mixed it into chicken salad, where it is pretty inoffensive.  I didn’t love it, but didn’t hate it either.  At least the price was right.

With few exceptions, I never keep plain, regular yellow mustard at home.  Sometimes (too often), it is the only choice available at restaurants.  It is fine on hot dogs and hamburgers (my beloved Krystals wouldn’t be the same without yellow mustard), but there is one more purpose for it, where a “nicer,” fancier mustard just wouldn’t be right: Cuban sandwiches.  When you slice and stack tender, mojo criollo-marinated roast pork loin, sweet baked ham, Swiss cheese, and crunchy dill pickles on fresh Cuban bread and press it in a plancha, you need that basic yellow mustard for the Cubano to taste just right, making it one of the ultimate sandwiches of all time.   And I believe I have found the tastiest yellow mustard out there, or at least my own personal favorite: Sam’s Choice Cuban Style Mustard, also from Walmart.  It tastes so much better than any other yellow mustard I’ve ever tried, and oh yes, I did put it on homemade Cubanos and a couple of store-bought Cuban sandwiches too.  I stocked up on a few bottles of this, because I don’t go to Walmart that often, but it is really good.  Publix doesn’t carry any equivalent of this, and Winn-Dixie carries a Cuban mustard from the Plochman’s brand, which is a few dollars more than the Sam’s Choice.  I haven’t tried the Plochman’s Cuban yet, but at least I know I like this one a lot for anything that normally calls for yellow mustard.

Terrapin Ridge Farms is definitely a fancy, upscale brand that I normally don’t take a second look at due to price, but it is based out of Clearwater, Florida, which is home to a really nice beach.  Publix stocks a few Terrapin Ridge Farms condiments near the deli, but not even close to all the interesting flavors they produce.  No matter how good their condiments may look and sound, I can’t justify spending $7 for a jar.  But a few weeks ago, Publix had a Buy One, Get One Free sale for their small Terrapin Ridge Farms product selection,  so I finally indulged.  I bought three jars of an absolutely delicious hot pepper bacon jam, and one jar of this dill pickle mustard.  It’s on the creamy side, and very pickley.  It tastes more like sour pickles than dill.  Normally I’d put mustard and pickles on burgers or sandwiches, so I’m trying to think of uses where you might want this mustard to cover both bases, without making it redundant by using actual pickles.  I also dipped some homemade sweet potato oven fries in it and mixed a lot of it into some chicken salad, and those worked okay.  I think I’d rather use other mustards and then just add favorite pickles for a nice crunch, but if you don’t have pickles on hand or don’t want to use them, you might be pleasantly surprised by this mustard.

I was also dipping sweet potato fries in this Robert Rothschild Farm Sweet & Spicy mustard, which was a better fit for them.  The Robert Rothschild Farm brand is always expensive, but their products seem almost tailor-made to tempt me: mustards, condiments, sauces, dressings, and dips with flavor combinations I love.  They always have stuff that is savory, sweet, spicy, fruity, smoky — often all combined together!  This Sweet & Spicy mustard is thick and sticky like a honey mustard, with a slight bite, but not overpoweringly hot.  It was fine on the soft pretzel, but very good with the sweet potato fries.   I think it would work well in a sandwich with savory meats like roast beef and turkey.  It would be an inspired main ingredient in a glaze if you were baking a ham (and then you could leave out some sugar), but it might be a little much spread onto a sweet ham sandwich.  It would be great as a dip for heavy, salty fried foods like french fries or fried chicken, or made into a barbecue sauce.

Last, but definitely not least, is another Robert Rothschild Farm product, Anna Mae’s Smoky mustard.  This was recommended to me by a foodie friend and former co-worker, and that’s when I learned that Walmart was the only place that sold Robert Rothschild Farm mustards around here.  Interestingly, they started clearancing them a couple of months ago, so I picked up a few jars of the Sweet & Spicy for $2-something each and a few of the Anna Mae’s Smoky for $3-something each, both marked down from the usual $5.  Now they are gone, at least from the Walmarts near me, so I’m glad I stocked up when I did.  This one is AWESOME.  It is my favorite mustard I’ve reviewed on this page, and I highly recommend it to all, if you can still find it anywhere.  This mustard would go well on or in anything.  If you can find a jar, treat yourself and pick one up, even at regular Robert Rothschild prices.  I give it my highest possible Saboscrivner recommendation.

So my top recommendations are the Robert Rothschild Farm Anna Mae’s Smoky mustard (for anything and everything), the Sam’s Choice Cuban Style mustard (for anything you’d put yellow mustard on) and the Grey Poupon Mild & Creamy Dijon (for most sandwiches).  Those were the big winners here, but I feel like the biggest winner of all, eating imported German soft pretzels with seven different mustards like some kind of big shot, and then blogging about it.  I wish I could time-travel back to tell my teenage self “It gets better.”