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A shortage of Dijon mustard in France
- nightski 4y agoI grew mustard for the first time this year simply because I love it. Was a very fun experience, going to do even better next year.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- insane_dreamer 4y agoThis is the news I come to HN for
- cm42 4y agoExcuse me, sir, do you have any Grey Poupon? The answer to this timeless question, experts say, is increasingly "no". It all started in Dijon, the capital of Burgundy, in the spring of 1634, when, as luck (or Providence) would have it, ...
- nephanth 4y agoInterestingly, Grey Poupon, while being marketed as french mustard, does not sell in France
- dekhn 4y agoHuh. I can buy a pound of mustard seeds on Amazon and make my own spicy brown. This changes everything.
- kergonath 4y agoWithout paywall here: https://archive.ph/5Qccg https://archive.ph/5Qccg
- evilc00kie 4y agoFunny thing. We still have Dijon but lack with regional mustard like Bautzner.
- voxadam 4y agoThat hurts. My life would be substantially less rich without Dijon. I love mustard. Mustard is truly the king of condiments.
- devchix 4y agoMay I introduce you to Nathan's Spicey Brown Mustard and Kosciusko Spicey Brown Mustard? I think of it as the American answer to Dijon.
- sbf501 4y agoThere's also moutard de Bourgogn which is a bit spicier than DOC Dijon if you can't find the latter (most regions have their own blend and they are all similar).
- mantas 4y agoYou can try growing your own mustard. I hear it's not that hard.
- ben_w 4y agoBut it's only Dijon mustard if it's from the Dijon region, otherwise it's just a sparkling yellow condiment. ;)
- mantas 4y agoyou should be able to replicate whatever special soil you need with hidroponics
- lizknope 4y agoI think they are making fun of the European Union's law on protected designation of origin. You can make something that tastes like champagne but you can't call it champagne unless it is from the Champagne region of France. You have to call it sparkling wine or something else. It's the same for parmesan cheese and many other products. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_designation_of_origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_designation_of_origi...
- hef19898 4y agoLast weekend the only mustard we find when visiting family in France was German brands. So yeah, last years shortfalls in mustard yields in Canada, the current draught in Europe preventing France to increase local rpoduction and the war Ukraine preventing imports from either Russia or Ukraine hurts. Luckily we still have some stock, even mustard looses some taste over time even if kept in cold and dry storage and was never opened...
- zwaps 4y agoIt's funny, I can totally see how a French person would never buy German brands. Interestingly though, the "Löwensenf" brand from Germany apparently produces mustard made like in Dijon, so it would be a good substitute in principle...
- hef19898 4y agoKnowing both, proper Dijon (incl. "industrial" ones) and Löwensenf mustard I'd say Löwensenf is at best a poor alternative. Not that itbis bad mustard, it is just something completely different.
- kergonath 4y agoI tend not to buy German brands. Not because they are bad or anything, but because their mustard was quite different (usually sweeter, less sharp, or less sour) every time I tried. They could be used as an ersatz in a pinch, but I’d rather have the stuff I am used to and which won’t mess with my usual recipes. I know that there are some German mustards that are very close to Dijon, but on balance the risk is much lower going with a French brand.
- pabs3 4y agoAre there no brown mustard seeds grown in France?
- eastbound 4y agoNew laws on pesticide make it difficult to do, so a lot of farms have repurposed to other plants.
- idk1 4y agoI'm in Britan and I'm not sure I've ever bought a hot dog here, let alone have it slathered in mustard. Every BBQ I've been to it's regular sausages and ketchup, maybe some un-opened mustard near by.
- poooogles 4y agoEnglish mustard is food of the gods. Tracklements (few miles from where I'm typing now) Strong English Mustard especially so. Might be a regional thing (or a class/culture thing?), but mustard goes in lots of stuff where I am in the south.
- idk1 4y agoOh yes for sure, I just meant I don't have it slather on sausages. I think my face would fold in on itself if I had more than a dash of English mustard. I like it on the side of susage and mash, or toad in the hole, but certainly not lots in a bun.
- samizdis 4y agoGood old-fashioned yellow English mustard is the go-to condiment for cold cuts of beef and ham, for pork pies and scotch eggs, for grilled steak and gammon, and it beats ketchup hollow when it comes to the bacon sarnie. Clean, crisp, and hot without being uncomfortably so.
- arethuza 4y ago"it beats ketchup hollow when it comes to the bacon sarnie" Sorry - that's just wrong, probably should be illegal. ;-) Brown sauce (HP if you are posh) that's the only thing to have on a bacon sarnie.
- bowsamic 4y ago> hot without being uncomfortably so. ?? English mustard is almost noxious
- 4y ago
- technotarek 4y agoVacationing in France as I write (but still reading HN). It was a surreal moment when our French family called before our departure asking if we could pack a jar or two for them! I guess I won’t fully understand until a peanut butter shortage hits the States. We nonetheless took their request seriously :)
- chasebank 4y agoJust latching on to a top comment for exposure. About a month ago, Business Insider put out a cool little video on french dijon mustard and why it's so expensive / hard to get. Fun little watch. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nVOhHo0puE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nVOhHo0puE
- themadturk 4y agoIf I may ask, which non-French dijon mustard did you bring them? As a dijon-lover myself, I just wonder what the closest match, or an acceptable substitute, to French dijon would be (I'm in the U.S.).
- technotarek 4y agoGrey Poupon (French Dijon) was readily available at our local grocery store in DC. I assume the incentives to divert the supplies from the US to France aren’t quite there yet.
- kurupt213 4y agoDijon mustard is an essential sauce ingredient for many dishes
- matsemann 4y agoI remember the butter crisis in Norway a few years ago. Just before Christmas, and everyone wanted to bake their families' traditional cookies. But no butter. Quite a horror show! My mom was in Denmark at the time, and bought like 20 packets back to Norway to distribute among friends haha. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_butter_crisis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_butter_crisis
- jiggywiggy 4y agoThey don't mention it, but one of the reasons the mustard seeds are not available in the Dijon region is because EU has been heavily subsidizing bio-energy crops like rapeseed for the last decades (which coincidentally also looks a lot like mustardseed) Good or bad, I don't know.
- treeman79 4y agoGovernment paying people to burn food supplies.
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoThere's a reason for that... They already produce or import enough food, so with growing plants for biodiesel: 1) you get some small amount of oil out of it. 2) if shit hits the fan, you have local farmers, with all the equipment and knowledge/training, who can immediately switch to food production if needed. The alternative would be to train new farmers, buy new equipment, etc., which would take a long, long time (especially if the government is organizing it), and there's that saying about two missed meals and a revolution, and french leaders really really don't want another revolution.
- HWR_14 4y ago> who can immediately switch to food production if needed. I think farming is not as fungible as you think. > which would take a long, long time (especially if the government is organizing it), The government seems pretty adept at forcing people to learn some basic skills pretty fast and forcing others to make heavy equipment when wars occur.
- pdpi 4y agoThis general principle applies to a lot of seemingly-irrational government action: it's effectively buying insurance. We all understand that, in an ideal world, most forms of (consumer-focused) insurance are a blackhole that you dump money into and never actually get any money back, because insurance only pays out if things go awry. Subsidising strategic industries like farming falls under that exact same rubric. Ideally you don't ever want to cash in on that investment, but it's important that it's there. The CHIPS Act in the US is an example of this idea exactly. In a world where China is getting more aggressive around Taiwan, US-based foundries are an (expensive) insurance policy.
- pvaldes 4y agoTime to jump to horseradish.
- donarb 4y agoOr horseradish mustard, pretty good stuff.
- amelius 4y ago(aka Wasabi)
- anonymous_sorry 4y agoReal wasabi isn't horseradish. But a lot of "wasabi" flavouring you get in the west is horseradish with green colouring.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Findecanor 4y agoWasabi and horseradish are different plants. They taste similar enough though that horseradish with green food-colouring is often used as wasabi, and that real wasabi is often diluted with horseradish — even in Japan. Real wasabi is more expensive partly because it is more difficult to cultivate (in stream beds vs. soil) and partly because growers keep supply low to hike up the price.
- xyzzy_plugh 4y agoIt's ludicrously expensive too. A little bit of whole wasabi lasts me a long time as wasabi paste is sort of "foamed up" and I find the volume increases. It would be so worth it if I could cultivate even a single plant myself. If you can't tell the difference, consider yourself lucky. I probably spend a few hundred dollars a year on wasabi and use it quite rarely.
- Yoric 4y ago
- Biganon 4y agoNo shortage at all here in Switzerland, 60 km away from France. I don't get it.
- bambax 4y agoIronically and paradoxically, Dijon mustard can be found in neighboring countries, because non-French people don't eat as much of the stuff. In France the minute any inventory shows up anywhere it's immediately depleted, whereas in other countries it can remain on shelves for weeks. Changing the allotment between France and other countries for exporting firms takes time, and so it does happen that more mustard is sent to countries that don't much care for it, while the French are deprived of it.
- ChuckNorris89 4y agoBut at what price? ;) Maybe it's more lucrative for French companies to sell it for 2x to the Swiss instead of locally.
- withinboredom 4y agoIf you read the article, you’d know that the mustard doesn’t come from France. It comes from Canada.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ectopod 4y agoNo, the seeds are mostly grown in Canada but the product is manufactured in France.
- prvit 4y agoThe real mustard disaster is just how hard it has become to get good Russian/Ukrainian mustard, Dijon simply doesn’t cut it.
- yakubin 4y agoWhat particular mustard do you have in mind? The Russian/Ukrainian mustards I've tried couldn't hold a candle to Dijon. Too tame.
- prvit 4y agoToo tame? That’s odd, generally Russians make a far more intense style of Mustard than Dijon. Zakuson is a quite good Russian style mustard, widely available because it’s made in Canada.
- yakubin 4y agoNo such mustard where I live. Tomorrow I'm going to a BBQ though, so I'm going to buy a whole set of mustards and let the best one win. I'll remember to get some Russian ones.
- noarchy 4y agoTaking the gatekeeping to the next level, I see.
- matthiaswh 4y agoI guess you could say they don't have any Grey Poupon. Pardon me.
- bionsystem 4y agoI ordered some to offer as a fun gift to my family on my holidays next week. Hopefully it's not bad (never tried it so I don't know the taste, plus it took a couple month to arrive I hope it didn't go bad somehow).
- denton-scratch 4y ago"Dijon" mustard isn't really a thing. It's not a protected designation, it's generic; 80% of Dijon Mustard is made from Canadian seeds, and no Dijon mustard is produced in Dijon.
- mytailorisrich 4y agoIt's true that origin is not protected but it is a thing and essentially refers to the production method/recipe/style. So it means "Dijon style" mustard.
- phtrivier 4y agoDoes game theory has any clue about how a non centrally planned system can avoid creating SPOFs ? Asking for friend living in a globalized economy that is going to traverse turbulences for a few decades.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- sofixa 4y agoGovernment intervention in the form of subsidies/taxes/regulations looks like it's the only realistic way.
- dghughes 4y agoThere always has been since farmers refuse to grow mustard seed due to government red tape. Dijon only has a small amount locally grown and almost none in France. As mentioned the majority of mustard seed for Dijon comes from Canada. Any Dijon from France grown in France is called Burgundy so really Dijon is pretty much the tourist version.
- kranke155 4y agosources.
- parkingrift 4y agoThis article. Everything OP said is in this article.
- baud147258 4y ago> France has been gripped by the mystery of the Dijon mustard shortage. At least for me, I knew it was coming from supply issues with Canada's mustard seeds (however I was thinking it was caused by last year's fires, not a drought)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- haunter 4y agoThere is a shortage of Huy Fong Foods Sriracha too https://www.npr.org/2022/06/17/1105477224/sriracha-shortage-chilli-climate-change https://www.npr.org/2022/06/17/1105477224/sriracha-shortage-... I can see “non essential” food products like these will be effected more and more in the future
- not_the_fda 4y agoDusseldorf mustard is better anyhow.
- zerohalo 4y agonext you'll be saying emacs is better than vim
- xyzzy_plugh 4y agoI came here to post this. Dijon is so uninteresting.
- Fiahil 4y agoI live in France and we ran out of Mustard when the shortage came out. We don't eat that much, but it has been quite annoying. Especially with the barbecue season. I suspect close relatives to hoard and run a "black market" mustard network. They got at least 3 sort of mustard last time we went to see them for dinner. I'm definitely jealous!
- sharmin123 4y ago
- smcl 4y agoSupposedly a blight afflicting grapevines, leading to a collapse in wine (and therefore brandy) production contributed to the popularity of Scotch whisky outside Scotland. I wonder if the decline in Dijon mustard will turn the French on to English mustard :)
- LatteLazy 4y agoI wonder how many geographic food labels will be able to survive climate change (not sure whether that is the specific issue here but in general...).
- bionsystem 4y agoIt's part of the issue. And I believe it's going to be pretty bad. For example in France, we already see some wines and champagnes change taste. After such a hot summer the next batch of a few domains, gathered in fall, will probably contain many disappointments. Other regions which used to not have great conditions might become much more interesting to grow raisin. Maybe some clever (or lucky) guy will buy the next good fields while some of the existing domains will go bankrupt. This is just an example of course.
- LatteLazy 4y agoI honestly wonder if buying land 100xkm north of current high value areas and waiting 20 years is a viable investment strategy. Some smart billionaire with a bunch of geographers is likely going to make a killing...
- bionsystem 4y agoAt the very least it would be a smart hedge. I mean not necessarily going north but at least have some land that don't face the sun all day like being on the "wrong" side of a mountain for example. Some of them are a fraction of the price of the next town that has sun all day. If we keep getting rises in energy prices it will be much more valuable to have diversification than to have one massive penthouse.
- BrandoElFollito 4y agoI was yesterday at my shopping center (a Super U) and for some reason I had a look at the oil and mustard as I read about this earlier in the week. Plenty of oils and plenty of mustards.
- topbanana 4y agoI was in Bordeaux last week and they were out of Dijon mustard. It's the best for dressing and many classic sauces
- hef19898 4y agoCora in the north east only had Löwensenf and Alnatura from Germany. It depends on overall stock and indiviual supply chains between supermarket chains and regions.
- differentView 4y agoThe article is specifically discussing a shortage in Dijon Mustard in France.
- prvit 4y agoGiven the Super U reference, gp is presumably in France.
- BrandoElFollito 4y agoYes, in France and I checked for Dijon mustard. I must keep the name of my Super U secret or we will have an invasion :)
- baud147258 4y agoI don't often check that part of the shop, but in the monoprix (near Paris) where I usually get my groceries, there hasn't been any Dijon mustard for a few months
- rmetzler 4y agoThe mustard seed shortage due to the war in Ukraine also affects at least some of the German brands. Bautz’ner Mittelscharfer Senf - a staple in eastern Germany - is really hard to get.
- NoblePublius 4y agoThere are eight varieties of Dijon mustard available to me for 2-hour delivery by Amazon Fresh right now in Miami. Five of them are made in France. Fake news?
- pluies 4y ago> There is a shortage of Dijon mustard *in France*
- NoblePublius 4y agoBecause they’re exporting it all to Miami? This story makes no sense.
- insane_dreamer 4y agoit's not unusual for exports to take priority over the local market since the former is often more lucrative; also, there probably aren't as many people in Miami buying Dijon mustard as in France ...
- Sakos 4y agoI'm not sure what's confusing about regional shortages.
- trebligdivad 4y agoCan you vertically farm mustard? It sounds perfect for it.
- gniv 4y agoAnd the Dijon mustard shortage led to a mustard shortage. Until a couple of weeks ago I could not find any mustard in any supermarket here (near Paris). It was a bit surreal the first time I was told.
- AzzieElbab 4y agoMeanwhile, here in Canada I worry about Sriracha shortages https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/sriracha-hot-sauce-shortage-canada-growing-1.6492875 https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/sriracha-hot-sauce-shortage-...
- notorandit 4y agoIn a limited world, all supplies are limited. So, aiming at everyone (~ 7B ppl) can have everything can easily hit such a simple limit.
- Dylan16807 4y agoUnless average tastes rapidly swing, that shouldn't be an issue. People only need so much in the way of spices and condiments, and there's plenty of space to grow them in.
- draw_down 4y ago