Re: [CH] MUSTARD

John Benz Fentner, Jr. (jbenz@courant.infi.net)
Sat, 01 Aug 1998 19:34:16 -0400 

Chipotle Coyote wrote:

> Those of you who are mustard fans.. might want to know August 3rd
> is national mustard day.
>
> The name is said to come from a Roman
> mixture of crushed mustard seed and MUST
> (unfermented grape juice), which was called
> mustum ardens  ("burning wine"). Likewise,
> the French word moutarde  ("mustard") comes
> from a contraction of their moust  ("must") and
> a form of ardent  ("hot" or "fiery").

Ah...it is indeed and, by strange coincidence, this appeared in this week's
World Wide Words from Michael Quinion:


Q.  Some years ago I came across an article about a zoo and its
new acquisition, a lion. The zoo had hoped to gain cubs, but this
lion, as the newspaper gleefully informed me, was unable to "cut
his mustard". What has mustard got to do with it? Is there a good
story behind this expression or is it just one of those enduring
nonsenses? [Jerzy Wawro]
A.  It seems that the phrase is of early twentieth-century US
origin. For a while before then, 'mustard' was used alone
figuratively to mean something that added zest to a situation. The
first recorded use of the phrase is by O Henry in 1907, in a story
called _The Heart of the West_: "I looked around and found a
proposition that exactly cut the mustard". The modern sense of the
idiom is "to succeed; to have the ability to do something; to come
up to expectations". But why that exact phrase, nobody seems to
know. Cutting mustard is hardly an arduous endeavour, after all,
and there seems not to be any older phrase to which it is related.
As I can't fully answer your question, let me present as a
consolation prize the reason why 'mustard' is so named. It derives
from an ancient French way of making a hot condiment by grinding
up the seeds of various members of the cabbage family in the
freshly pressed juice of grapes, then called the 'moust' ('must'
in modern English). A French word 'moustarde' appeared to describe
this mixture, which was brought into English in the twelfth
century and quickly settled to the modern spelling. (Luckily
'moust' and 'moustarde' shifted their spelling and pronunciation
in the same direction down the years, so their connection is still
obvious.)

JB
--
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John Benz Fentner, Jr.
Unionville, Connecticut, USA
http://www.geocities.com/~jbenz/
"Lex Non Favet Delicatorum Votis"
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