Adventures in pantry archaeology: 1998 moutarde

What's hidden in your pantry, gathering dust and awaiting rediscovery?

In the mid-90s you could find, in American stores, a wide variety of mustards made by the Maille company in Dijon, France. My favorite was a shallot one with white wine-- sharp, sophisticated, perfect for a ham sandwich on Baltic Bakery dark rye. Then, suddenly, it was not to be found-- in fact the entire Maille line seemed to be stripped down to only a few varieties available in this country.

In 1998 my wife and I went to France, including a few days in Dijon. Which meant, of course, a visit to the Maille company store, where we found lots of things we had never even seen in the U.S.-- a hot pepper mustard, a deeply vinegary brown mustard which I loved, and of course our old friend shallot mustard, which we bought a half dozen of. (Not sure why the label was in German.) Over the next year or two, mindful of the fact that mustard is not supposed to keep its pungency more than about a year, we carefully consumed every last precious dollop of these jars...



...or so I thought, until I was digging through a shelf at the very top of one of my cabinets, and found what is quite possibly the world's last jar of Maille shallot with white wine mustard. Because when my wife went back to France a couple of years ago with her sisters, Maille's line seemed to have contracted even further. No hot mustard, no vinegary brown mustard, and no more Schallotten mit Weisswein.

Seven years past its expiration date, almost to the day. Well, no sense in delaying, then. I opened it up. I spread it on a ham sandwich. It brought back a remembrance of temps perdu. It had lost a little pungency, perhaps, but on the whole, a very satisfying last taste of an old friend. Well, the first of some last tastes, for about the next month or so, anyway. I will treasure every one of them.

So dig in your pantry tonight. You never know, you might find your lost youth in France, like I did.