Since our trip to Germany last year, Little One has been in love with the sweet deli mustard from Germany. It’s unavailable here, so we made a point of bringing back three jars (that was an adventure). Number One Son, in the meantime, has decided that he’d like to try the white bread of mustard, the bright yellow stuff (called French’s, but decidedly American), so I picked up a bottle from the local discount grocer’s for $1.25.
The German mustard, priced at an attractive 29 Euro cents, comes in a glass jar with a simple plastic lid, the idea being that you will have a free, if homely, glass for your use when finished. Judging from my admittedly unscientific sampling of the number of these sturdy glasses in cupboards throughout Southern Germany, this is a highly successful brand. The French’s, by contrast, comes in a highly engineered, disposable plastic bottle, with a “stay clean cap,” consisting of a flip-top cover over a valve spout.
I happen to believe that the smell of freshly opened mustard is one of those little joys in life, as the odor fills the immediate area. In the case of Dijon mustard, it can bring you to tears, and not from joy. And opening these two mustards is a cultural exercise. The Euro-mustard is decidedly unfussy: the plastic lid comes off with little effort, and you’re ready to spread. By contrast, the safety-at-all-costs-in-a-fear-based-society mustard requires the starving picnic-goer to first unscrew the stay clean cap and remove and discard (“where’s the garbage bag?”) the tamper-proof seal (“for your protection”). Only then can the cap be replaced and the yellow goop squeezed out onto the cooling dog.
And so it goes with so many products: the salad dressing has a seal around its neck that requires a knife to break, the cucumber is covered in a shrink-wrapped condom, and the vinegar has a pullout seal.
I am always amazed and disappointed by the little pile of plastic tear-offs, twisty-ties and baggies that amass on the counter every evening as I prepare supper (I have long since stopped throwing them out one at a time, as the repeated trips to the garbage add minutes to my preparation time). I can’t help wondering what happens when we scale it up: how many others are doing the same thing each evening, and how much of our landfill is made up of these little doodads?
And even though the seals inevitably assure me that it’s for my protection, I’m not at all convinced that they’re making my food any safer. Indeed, these little safety devices came into widespread use after the Tylenol scare in the 80s, but since then, the larger threat has not been from individual tamperers or even terrorists, but from the food producers themselves, with a little help from our governement. Yup, it seems the FDA knew there were problems at that peanut processing plant in Georgia, but were not empowered to do anything about it. And yes, that peanut butter came in sealed jars.
I recall my French teacher explaining that one must check brie for ripeness by removing it from its box and squeezing it—in the supermarket. Imagine, being able to smell and feel your food before you buy it. It’s not about the wrapper, it’s what’s inside the jar. Smell the mustard.
