  You are an appetizer prime, And a friend in time of pain. What did they do without you, pray, Before Old Lady Clements’ time? FRENCH, Moutarde; German, Senf; Portuguese, Mustarda; Spanish, Maszaza. The mustard of commerce is the seed, whole or powdered, of the several species of the genus brassica (or sinapis) of the mustard family. They are (cruciferous) plants which grow wild, or cinnamon charlock, and are cultivated under various conditions. Mustard dates back through a number of centuries, and the mustard tree, spoken of in Luke XIII, 19, which attains a height of ten or even fifteen feet in Palestine, was probably the true mustard, brassica (sinapis) nigra, according to Ragle and others. The tree meant is Salvadora Persica, a small tree bearing minute berries with pungent seeds which bear the name in Arabic of mustard. Hippocrates used it in medicine under the name of vanuit. In the time of Queen Elizabeth, the Dutch were employed to throw out the earth from the eighty-foot dyke to drain the farms of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and Cambridgeshire, which were covered with water and had been the habitation of wild fowls. This dirt was found to contain small brown seeds which, on being exposed to the sun and air, sprouted and grew into plants, producing a yellow blossom which proved to be mustard. The two common varieties are the black or brown mustard, known as (brassica sinapis nigra), and the white seed, as it is called, although of a yellow color (brassica sinapis alba), usually found in whole mixed spices. The Indian wild brown mustard seed (rai or charlock juncea Sarepta brassica), taking the name Sarepta from the city of that name in Russia, in the government of Saratov, is sometimes offered as the black mustard. Sinapis glauca and sinapis ramosa yield a white seed found in South Russia and in the steppes northeast of the Caspian Sea. Mustard is known by every farmer and is an annual herb (see illustration), from three to six feet high, with lyrate leaves, yellowish flower, and slender pods containing round seed; it may be grown almost anywhere. As only a few kinds of mustard seed are known to commerce, we will confine our history principally to the black seed, which is yellow within (brassica nigra), and which furnishes the most aroma. The seeds are very small and do not weigh more than one-fiftieth of a grain, while the seed of brassica alba, or the white seed, as it is called, is three times as large as the black. Mustard seed is found in almost all of Europe, except the most northern part, in Northern Africa, Asia Minor, the United States, Mesopotamia, the West Indies, South Siberia, and China. It is naturalized in North and South America, and is cultivated to a great extent in Bohemia, Holland, and Italy, and in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, England. It is generally put up for market in bags of 200 pounds each. Much of the black seed (Fig. 5) comes from California, and is brought to the Eastern market by railroads; much comes also from Kentucky. Each of these States produce large crops, and the New York Spice Mills use large quantities of it on account of its being cheaper than the imported. It does not contain as much flour as the yellow seed, but it is sweeter. The best dark seed comes from Italy and is exported from the city of Trieste, Austria, and is called Trieste mustard. (See illustration.) It is often sent by the Mediterranean Sea to London, and from there is transferred to New York vessels, although some comes direct from Bombay and Sicily. The yellow or large, plump, straw-colored, rough, hairy seed (Fig. 4) is much less remunerative than the black, smooth seed; is white inside, and, though a native of Asia, is found in Russia and Africa. The best of it comes from England, and is often called English mustard. TRIESTE, AUSTRIA The Dutch seed is considered next grade in quality to the English. In China and some parts of Europe a species is cultivated for greens for the table, which are prepared in the same way as spinach. The great aim of the grower is to produce reddish-brown seed, without any intermixture of gray. The gray color of the seed is attributed to the influence of the rains during the ripening. The presence of this color greatly lowers the value of the seed. The crop requires very little tillage. The seed is sown broadcast, in the month of April, at the rate of one bushel to an acre. The harvesting will take place in June and July. The land is sufficiently seeded to produce two crops, which are sometimes gathered in one year. A yield of forty bushels to an acre is not uncommon. The seed weighs sixty pounds to the bushel. Mustard was first introduced as a table condiment in the year 1720 by an old lady named Clements, residing in Durham. It is from this fact that the well-known Durham mustard takes its name. She prepared it in a crude form by grinding the seed in a small hand mill. The product was nothing more than the crushed seed. This was passed through mesh sieves to separate the bran from the husk. The secret of this process she kept for many years. Mustard was used as a medicine by the ancients and is spoken of in history by Theophrastus and Galen and others. Its use as a condiment is spoken of by Shakespeare in “Taming of the Shrew,” Act IV, Scene III. The mustard which was made in the time of King George, who gave it his approval, was made from the wild charlock S. arvensis and was prepared by Lady Clements. But as manufacturing gradually developed, in order to cater to public taste, the seed meal has been changed to the genuine mustard of to-day, which is the farina or flour of the black or white mustard seed, made from the interior of the seed, which is separated from the outer coat or shell. Mustard seed contains so much oil that it cannot be ground on common burr stones. It is prepared for market by first passing it through a winnowing machine to remove the dust and any other foreign material; it is next crushed by passing it between rollers; then it is placed in silk bags made for that purpose, and the volatile oil is extracted by hydraulic pressure. After the cake is dried it is put into pots and is stamped or pounded by a system of battery pounding, or by means of roller mills, in which the pounders vary in number from two to four, eight, twelve, or sixteen. The pounding or stamping continues until the cake is reduced to the consistency of soft middlings, or to the required powder. It is next scooped out into a trough and more cake is put into the pots. The stamping continues until all the cake is used up. Then it is scooped for bolting on sieves made of silk cloth of fine or coarse mesh, as required, which are set in frames and given a shaking motion by an upright shaft, the meal falling into a receptacle below. The quality of powdered mustard varies much, according to the quality of the mustard seed. Prime seed yields 50 to 60 per cent. of flour, and poor seed will run as low as 28 per cent. It does not pay to prepare poor seed, as the time lost in its preparation would not make up for the cheapness of it. The operation of properly reducing mustard seed requires expert handling, and it can easily be ruined by incompetent operators. More than 50 or 60 per cent. of meal might be taken out at the first sifting, but to do so the bran would have to be chopped up so fine that some would pass through the sieve and spoil the appearance of the flour. The flour which is taken out at the first sifting is called superfine. If no more could be obtained from the seed than the superfine flour, it is very clear that the mustard flour would cost nearly or quite twice as much as the cake, with all the labor added. But to save this extra cost the miller often adds to the remaining bran or tailings an equal quantity of good wheat flour, and also 1 per cent. of good Cayenne pepper, and sufficient color (tumeric) to give the same tinge as that of pure mustard. Pound this as before and by the same process, the flour remaining is separated from the bran and united with the wheat flour. In passing through the sieve, 75 per cent. of the compound may be extracted. This product, which is better than most of the adulterated, is called fine. Nearly all of the wheat flour will pass through the sieves, and about 25 per cent. of the mustard and this 25 per cent. of bran is treated as before. As the wheat flour is increased, the hulls or bran will be less apt to affect the appearance of the mustard. This is called seconds. It is admitted that much of the good property of the mustard is in the bran, and, after all, it is only necessary to extract it to satisfy a popular prejudice as to what a fine, yellow color pure mustard ought to have. This notion is often wrong, just as coloring butter to please the eyes is wrong. These mixtures may all be mixed and powdered together, if rightly colored, and again bolted to make various grades, or, with experience in the use of a mill and an acquaintance with the nature of the particular kind of seed or the quality of the pressed cake, it may be powdered from the start, if sufficient adulteration is added to the cake. Thus a grade combining all the qualities may be made at one operation. This process reduces the labor to a minimum. After the sifting is completed there will remain a residue in the sieves, which is called dressing. This is used in wet mustard or French mustard, as it is known to the consumer. It is sometimes used by pickle manufacturers. WET MUSTARD OR FRENCH MUSTARD,Consists of a compound of crushed mustard seed and vinegar, the seed having been passed between rollers and then washed into a cask or vat. With it there is often mixed garlic and such spice or flavoring material as the fancy or experience of the manufacturer will determine. This compound is ground two or three times through a stone mill or through a line of several mills, the material being fed from one to the other until it is received in a final reservoir, from which it is put up in bottles. It is of a consistency of paste, which contains all the mustard, the oil, the flour, and the bran. It may be compounded with an indefinite variety of material, and the refuse bran of dry mustard may also be added. Its use is steadily increasing, and a very satisfactory article may be made at home by thoroughly pounding the seed and mixing it with good vinegar. In this way the maker can be sure that his compound has the virtue of purity and also of cheapness. As the fixed oil has no pungency or mustard taste, it adds nothing to the flavor of the flour, but, instead, injures its keeping qualities, and, if left in, makes the seed very difficult to be pulverized. It is used as a salad and there is a ready market for it, as there is a great demand for it by the Jewish people. Since hydraulic presses are expensive, costing from $2,000 to $4,000 each, but a small number of the spice millers press their own mustard seed. They either buy the mustard cake, which has been prepared by special mustard mills, or buy the pure or adulterated flour, already prepared for the market. Some spice millers are suspicious of the cake, fearing it may be adulterated or be made up of partially poor seed, or of the refuse of previous workings, and they have good reasons for their fears, as such adulteration might occur, but as the pure article is to be judged by the flavor and pungency it may possess, it is as easy to test the cake as the seed. Mustard is not only very popular as a condiment but is a medicinal rubefacient, as it has many stimulating properties. The use of mustard plasters every household is familiar with; mustard also promotes digestion, and it is a splendid emetic in case of poisoning. A good story is told of a quack doctor who advertised electric belts for sale. He had received many testimonials from those who had bought them, his patrons speaking very highly of the benefit they had received from their use, but as the belts became worn and were ripped open it was found that the electricity they contained was made up of mustard flour. In the ground mustard or mustard meal, as has been explained, we have only the interior of the seed, with the exception of the few small portions of the husk, which may have escaped in the operation of bolting. The presence of these fragments enables us to recognize the source from which the flour is derived, and also to detect the use of mustard hulls as an adulterant of other food materials. The farina or black and white mustard differs but little in appearance. The brown, however, is slightly darker. The outer colorous epidermis consists of angular plates, or hexagonal tabular cells, with a center of different brilliancy. It swells up and becomes slimy in water, and, therefore, must be observed in glycerine. At the best it requires some manipulation to see it well, and it is far less prominent in the black seed. The next coat, denominated the subepidermal, is not prominent and can only be seen at all easily in the white seed. The third layer is an important one, and in it is found the coloring matter of the brown seed. Its absence is the cause of the lack of color in the white variety. By this layer one is able to tell whether the flour is a mixture of both the black and white seed or if it is derived from one only. Fragments of this layer are common in powdered mustard. It is distinguished by the thick or colorless brown cell walls and their irregular dotted appearance. Between the third and second layers are numerous cells containing some color in the brown seed, but of little importance. Within these comes the important layer, denominated the inner tunic or plasma layer. It separates readily from the other parts of the husk and is often found by itself in the powdered mustard. As its contents are broken up by water or chloral-hydrate, it is necessary to use glycerine or oil in mounting. The cells and their contents of this layer are large and much alike in both the black and white seed. The interior of the mustard seed is made up of small, soft parenchyma cells, containing the oil and the other constituents of the mustard, but without any trace of starch—a fact which makes adulterations easily detected. The peculiar pungency and odor of the black seed are due to an essential or fixed oil, myronic acid, which is developed by the action of cold water (hot water will not answer) on two peculiar chemical substances which it contains, which form a compound, termed by the discoverers myronate of potash, but since called synanthrin, an acid with formula C10H19NS2O10. This acid is converted into the volatile oil of mustard or sulphocyanide of allyl C4H5NS, or Through the agency of the myrosin, another constituent of brown seed, when the two are brought in contact through the medium of water, we have vegetable albumen, a bitter principle, a little gum and sugar, and a peculiar green substance, cellulose, and mineral water, called sulphocyanide of sinapine. 8. Sinapaline sincaline. White mustard seed contains from 25 per cent. to 35 per cent. of an inodorous fixed oil with a little tendency to become rancid and of little pungency, which it will not give up in water. In place of myronic acid converted into volatile oil of mustard, it contains a non-volatile, bitter and acrid salt termed sulphocyanide of sinapine (C17H24N2SO5 or C16H23NO5CNHS), myrosin gum cellulose and mineral matter. Now, as it is on the volatile oil and the acrid and somewhat bitter salt that the pungency and acridity of mustard depend, we can see a strong reason why in the mustard of commerce the farina of the two species, black and white seed, should be blended together, in the proportion of two parts of white to one of black. The black seed does contain some of the acrid principle as well as the volatile oil, as has been verified by the action of nitric acid, caustic potash, and ferric chloride, on the alcoholic extract. It is, therefore, the most valuable of the two seeds on account of the little volatile oil in the yellow seed. The acrid principle of white mustard appears to possess but little stability, although it has been said to bear a temperature of 130 degrees C. We find that it is readily affected by heat and that it is not safe to evaporate the alcoholic solution containing it at a higher temperature than about 30 degrees C., for, if subjected to a much higher temperature, it quickly loses its acridity and acquires a bitter, caramel-like taste. The oil extracted by ether from the brown seed is of a bright and beautiful emerald-green color, owing to the peculiar green principle described as one of its constituents. So deep and remarkable is the color of the oil that it would be easy by means of a graduated scale of tints to determine with very tolerable certainty the percentage of brown mustard contained in any sample of mixed mustard. Specific gravity, 1.017; boils at 148 degrees. Myronate of potash decomposes under the influence of the nitrogenous matter contained in brown mustard into volatile oil, glucose, and acid sulphate of potash. The quantity of each of these products of decomposition gives, therefore, by simple calculation, the quantity of myronic acid; one hundred parts of this acid yield 23.85 parts of volatile oil. Place forty to fifty grammes of mustard farina in a flask of about one-half liter capacity; 250 cubic centimeters of tepid water should be poured over it, then close the flask with a cork and shake well. After twenty-four hours’ standing connect the flask with a Liebig’s condenser and heat to boiling. Pour thirty cubic centimeters strong ammonia into the receiver, the end of the condenser being dipped below the surface of the liquid. Water and the volatile oil will pass over, the oil at first floating in the shape of oily drops on the surface of the liquid, which soon sinks to the bottom, especially when the liquid is gently agitated. When no more oil globules pass over, the distillation has finished. The receiver should be closed with a cork and allowed to stand twenty-four hours; at the end of this time all the oil will be dissolved and is now contained in the liquid in the form of thiosinamine (C4H8N2). This solution is evaporated on the water bath in a weighed platinum basin, the residue dried and weighed, and the quantity of thiosinamine obtained, minus one molecule of ammonia, represents the amount of volatile oil. To estimate the amount of myrosin or albumen and sulphocyanide of sinapine, the amount of nitrogen and sulphur in the mustard should first be obtained, the former by combustion with soda lime in the well-known manner, and the latter by deflagration of the mustard and oxidation of its sulphur in a mixture of nitrate of soda and carbonate of potash. First, dissolve the mass in water or diluted acid, and the sulphuric acid contained in the solution is estimated by means of chloride of barium, and, from this data the amount of the myrosin and of the sulphocyanide of sinapine, the acrid principle is calculated. As much sulphur and nitrogen are first deducted from the totals of these substances obtained as is contained in the quantity of myronic acid previously determined. Next, the whole remaining sulphur, and as much of the nitrogen as is required, are estimated in the acrid principle, and, lastly, the surplus nitrogen is calculated into myrosin, which has the same formula as vegetable albumen. But now, having the amount of the acrid principle and of the myrosin, a further calculation has to be made, since myrosin contains about 1 per cent. of sulphur, and this can be deducted from the total acrid principle, a corresponding quantity of nitrogen being in turn calculated into myrosin. Chemical composition of white mustard:
Chemical composition of brown mustard seed:
Mustard is, no doubt, adulterated more than any other of the condiments, unless it be black pepper. Tumeric is the great agent used to bring out the desired color in the adulteration, and Cayenne pepper is used to give it a tonic flavor. In fact, tumeric has been so extensively used in adulterating the mustard flour that many consumers have become so accustomed to it that, in judging the prepared mustard meal with the eye, they prefer it on account of its yellow color to the genuine mustard. It is claimed by some that tumeric is desirable in toning down the pungency of mustard and in adding to its keeping quality, but if it was too pungent more yellow seed might be used in place of an admixture. Tumeric is treated more as a constituent of the mustard than as a foreign substance—a fact which makes it appear almost a commercial necessity. This should not be allowed. The natural color of a pure meal is grayish or ashen, more like that of corn meal, and accordingly corn meal is considered a very good article to use as an adulterant; turnip, radish, and rape seed, and broken crackers are also often used. They are mixed with mustard seed and milled with it to increase the bulk and obtain more value from the cake. Tumeric, whose coloring matter is called curcumin, is a root containing starch. It resembles ginger and is ground in the same way as ginger. It is more generally used in preference to ocher or yellow earth. As mustard flour does not contain any starch, the fraudulent tumeric and starch are readily detected in the farina by the use of iodine and ammonia. Place a little of the suspected sample, which has been previously heated and afterwards allowed to cool, on a piece of glass and add the ammonia or iodine, when the brown coloring principle of the tumeric will be brought out. It may also be detected by its action with borax or boric acid and Martin yellow (dinitronapthol) by the use of 95 per cent. of alcohol. If capsicum be present the test would best be observed by treating the dry mustard with strong alcohol by percolation, which would develop the peculiar pungency of the capsicum when concentrated. The microscope is the best aid to detect it. Wheat flour, if used to adulterate, contains but 1.2 to 2.1 per cent., and reduces the natural yellow color of mustard, which must then be toned up with tumeric or some other coloring matter. In the discussion of the analysis of mustard seed we may add that the flour is fairly constant in its composition; water is present in small amounts, varying between 3 and 7 per cent.; ash varies between 4 and 6 per cent., and so foreign mineral matter is easily detected. Volatile oil is present in the seed in small amounts, varying from 2.06 in one to as little as 0.55 in another. Fixed oil is one of the most prominent constituents of the seed. It varies in amount from 31 to 37 per cent. Starch is entirely absent in the whole seed. Crude fiber varies, depending on the care and method of milling. The amount should not be more than 6 to 7 per cent. Albuminoids make up a large part of the seed, varying from 25 to 30 per cent. If they are below 20 per cent. this fact points to dilution with material poor in nitrogen. The undetermined matter consists of gum and some unidentified substances soluble in alcohol, whose estimation is of no particular value, as a means of detecting adulterations. As a whole, for general reference, the following table may be used:
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