The Only Museum Dedicated to Mustard

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Say free this week into your Xfinity voice remote. This is our American Stories, and our next story is about a condiment all of us know and use, mustard. In Middleton, Wisconsin, there's a museum dedicated to this stuff. Here to tell the story is the founder of that museum, Barry Levinson. Take it away, Barry. I don't know if you know, according to the National Condiment Research Council annual report, ketchup is now the leading cause of childhood stupidity in America.

Just telling you. Hi, my name is Barry Levinson, and I am the founder and curator of the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin. And this was not what I planned on doing when I was much younger. I actually was a lawyer at one time.

I was head of the criminal appeals division for the state of Wisconsin. But the curse that I had upon me was that I am originally from Massachusetts, which means, of course, I am a diehard Red Sox fan. I grew up having my heart broken year after year. 1967, they made it to the World Series. I remember it clearly. They lost in seven games. 1975, they also went to the World Series, lost in seven games. Then came 1986, and at the time I was here in Wisconsin doing criminal appellate work and the Red Sox were in the World Series.

And I told my friends, this is the year. There's no doubt that they had Roger Clemens. They had oh, my gosh, I think they must have had they had some great players. And it was game six. The Red Sox were ahead by two runs. Victory seemed assured, but of course, they lost. One thing led to another. I was devastated, but there was still game seven and game seven came in.

Of course, they lost. I was so depressed. I couldn't sleep. So I went to an all night grocery store, an all night supermarket just to walk. And I had no idea why I was there.

It was two thirty in the morning and I was pushing an empty cart up and down the aisle. Suddenly I was in front of the condiments. I remember going past the pickles and the olives, the relishes, the mayonnaises, the ketchups, nothing. I was in front of the mustards and I heard a voice that said, if you collect us, they will come. That's how I began my journey collecting jars of mustard. I think that night or that morning, I think I bought about 10 or 11 different mustards. I remember I think I bought French's mustard. I definitely I think the first one was Plachman's mustard. There were, you know, maybe 10 or 11 that I got. And I said, I'll never be lonely again because I will meet up with all the other mustard collectors in the world.

Little did I know there weren't any, but that didn't deter me. So that's when I began collecting jars of mustard. It was 1986, but I still had a little bit of common sense, so I didn't quit my job because I figured I needed another sign. And I got it.

I got another sign about six months later. It was actually April 20th, 1987. I was arguing a case at the United States Supreme Court.

You could look it up, Griffin versus Wisconsin. And on the way over to the court, leaving the my room at the Hyatt, I saw a discarded room service tray. And on it was a little jar of mustard and it was unopened.

And I saw it and I said, aha, I don't recognize it. And I'm thinking, OK, would it be theft for me to take this jar of mustard that could be reused by the hotel, but one which the hotel was not really expecting to get back? So I think I did what every good lawyer would have done.

I took it right. And I brought it with me to the United States Supreme Court and argued that case with that jar of mustard in my left pants pocket. This was a case that all of my colleagues said, there's no way you're going to win this.

Well, I won five to four. I'm sure that was the mustard that made a difference. And it was at that time that I knew I needed to plot and plan my exit from from law. And one day I would found the National Mustard Museum, which I did. And it opened in, let's see, would have been April of 1992.

And it's been growing ever since. And we have over six thousand different mustards. We have a lot of, I think, pieces of great mustard art, old mustard tins, old mustard pots, old mustard advertisements, because mustard goes back centuries. If you know that mustard before antibiotics and aspirin was probably the most popular prescribed medicine that doctors used. And I think if you're looking for the origin of what we know as mustard, go back to about the 12th or 13th century, where you will find the monks of the old Burgundian town of Dijon.

Get it? Dijon? But the monks were making what we know as mustard.

Curiously, there are no Dijon factories within the city limits of Dijon. One of the things we do at the Mustard Museum is we coordinate the international worldwide mustard competition. It's held every year. We've been doing it for about 20 years. And mustards arrive from all over the world because mustard is universal.

It's something that almost every culture knows about and uses. And every year there are about 300 different mustards that are judged blind in 17 different categories, because that's the beauty of mustard. There's sweet mustards, there's Dijon mustards, there's grainy mustards, there's herb mustards, there's fruit mustards, there's exotic mustards. There's a specific category for deli mustards, and we taste those with pastrami. There's so many different flavors, curry mustards. We have tasted chocolate mustards.

That's, I think, the beauty of it, and you can find different uses, of course, for all of them. Now, one of the things, though, that we have found here in the U.S. is that it's sometimes difficult to get children to eat mustard. And in France, it has never been a problem. Children grow up eating good, strong mustard. But I don't know if it's this thing about people just like sweet, mild things. That's a real problem, and probably the number one selling condiment is salsa. Ketchup, I think, comes in number two.

Mustard, and of course, you have to remember, a serving of mustard, it doesn't take a lot of mustard to give a lot of flavor, and you're not going to need as much. I mean, you need a lot more ketchup. And I don't understand why, here in this country, people insist on dipping French fries in ketchup.

It makes no sense. And there are people who, believe it or not, will put mayonnaise on a corned beef or pastrami sandwich. And that, to me, should be illegal. Also, people who put ketchup on hot dogs and bratwurst?

No, you just don't do that. For example, in Chicago, which is famous for the Chicago hot dog, which has yellow mustard, not brown mustard, neon green relish, sport peppers, celery salt, maybe a little wedge of tomato, a pickle. It's really one of the great taste treats of Chicago.

There are many hot dog stands in Chicago. If you go into them and you ask for ketchup, they will refuse to serve you. Good for them.

Good for them. One of the things that we've done, that I've done, is I've written a children's book called Mustard on a Pickle. And it's about a little boy who loves mustard so much that he puts it on everything. I'll give you a little taste of it. Is that OK?

OK. I like mustard on my toast. I like mustard on a roast. But what I really like the most is mustard dribbled on a ghost. Can you be trusted without mustard? I don't think so. You would stink so.

Don't get flustered. Eat your mustard. I like mustard on a pickle. I would even pay a nickel for just a teeny tiny squirt of mustard on my uncle's shirt. Everything tastes good with mustard, even plums and frozen custard. I like mustard in the air and mustard at the county fair, putting Dijon on a bun, slurping yellow in the sun. That's mustard on a pickle. So this is what I do.

It's just kind of an exciting thing to do. And I love just being at the museum with all my mustards. And what a great piece of work by Monty Montgomery, our our producer from Hillsdale College, by the way, a graduate of Hillsdale College, and find such great, quirky stories for us. My goodness, this was a really good one from going and arguing cases in the U.S. Supreme Court. By the way, attributing a winning argument to the mustard in his pocket, the founding the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin. We're talking about Barry Levinson and we thank him for telling his story about his love affair with mustard. By the way, my mom was a huge collector of these old purses made of metal and they were beautiful and she collected thousands of them. And we've done the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum, a mother and daughter combo who went around the country finding salt and pepper shaker combos.

Also, we've done the Mascot Hall of Fame, the story of the National Mustard Museum, here on Our American Stories. You know, there are some things in life you just can't trust, like a free couch on the side of the road, or the sushi rolls from your local gas station, or when your kid says they don't need the bathroom before the road trip. But there are some things in life you can trust, like the HP Smart Tank Printer. With up to two years of ink included and outstanding print quality, you can rely on the HP Smart Tank Printer from HP, America's most trusted printer brand.

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