Speaker 1: This is our American stories, and our next story is
Speaker 1: about a condiment all of us know and use, mustard.
Speaker 1: In Middleton, Wisconsin, there's a museum dedicated to this stuff.
Speaker 1: Here to tell the story is the founder of that museum,
Speaker 1: Barry Levinson. Take it away, Barry.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know. According to the National
Speaker 2: Continent Research Council annual report, ketchup is now the leading
Speaker 2: cause of childhood stupidity in America. Just telling you hi,
Speaker 2: my name is Barry Levinson, and I am the founder
Speaker 2: and curator of the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: And this was not what I planned on doing when
Speaker 2: I was much younger. I actually was a lawyer. At
Speaker 2: one time. I was head of the Criminal Appeals Division
Speaker 2: for the state of Wisconsin. But the curse that I
Speaker 2: had upon me was that I'm originally from Massachusetts, which means,
Speaker 2: of course, I am a diehard Red Sox fan. I
Speaker 2: grew up having my heart broken year after year. Nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty seven they made it to the World Series. I
Speaker 2: remember it clearly. They lost in seven games. Nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 2: they also went to the World Series, lost in seven games.
Speaker 2: Then came nineteen eighty six, and at the time I
Speaker 2: was here in Wisconsin doing criminal appellate work, and the
Speaker 2: Red Sox were in the World Series, and I told
Speaker 2: my friends, this is the year. There's no doubt that
Speaker 2: they had Roger Clemens. They had Oh my gosh, I
Speaker 2: think they must have had. They had some great players.
Speaker 2: Then and there was Game six. The Red Sox were
Speaker 2: ahead by two runs. Victory steamed assured, but of course
Speaker 2: they lost one thing led to another. I was devastated,
Speaker 2: but there was still game seven, and Game seven came,
Speaker 2: and of course they lost me. I was so depressed
Speaker 2: I couldn't sleep. So I went to an all night
Speaker 2: grocery store, an all night supermarket, just to walk. And
Speaker 2: I had no idea why I was there. It was
Speaker 2: two thirty in the morning, and I was pushing an
Speaker 2: empty cart up and down the aisles. Suddenly I was
Speaker 2: in front of the condiments. I remember going past the
Speaker 2: pickles and the olives, that relishes, the mayonnaises, the ketchups. Nothing.
Speaker 2: I was in front of the mustards, and I heard
Speaker 2: a voice that said, if you collect us, they will come.
Speaker 2: That's how I began my journey collecting jars of mustard.
Speaker 2: I think that night or that morning. I think I
Speaker 2: bought about ten or eleven different mustards. I remember, I
Speaker 2: think I bought Frenches mustard. I definitely, I think the
Speaker 2: first one was Plockman's mustard. There were, you know, maybe
Speaker 2: ten or eleven that I got, and I said, I'll
Speaker 2: never be lonely again, because I will meet up with
Speaker 2: all the other mustard collectors in the world. Little did
Speaker 2: I know there weren't any, but that didn't deter me.
Speaker 2: So that's when I began collecting jars of mustard. It
Speaker 2: was nineteen eighty six, but I still had a little
Speaker 2: bit of common sense, so I didn't quit my job
Speaker 2: because I figured I needed another sign, and I got it.
Speaker 2: I got another sign about six months later. It was
Speaker 2: actually April twentieth, nineteen eighty seven. I was arguing a
Speaker 2: case at the United States Supreme Court. You could look
Speaker 2: it up, Griffin versus Wisconsin. And on the way over
Speaker 2: to the court, leaving my room at the Hyatt, I
Speaker 2: saw a discarded room service tray and on it was
Speaker 2: a little jar of mustard and it was unopened. And
Speaker 2: I saw it. I said, Aha, I don't recognize it,
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking, okay, would it be that for me
Speaker 2: to take this jar of mustard that could be reused
Speaker 2: by the hotel, but one which the hotel was not
Speaker 2: really expecting to get back. So I think I did
Speaker 2: what every good lawyer would have done. I took it right,
Speaker 2: and I brought it with me to the United States
Speaker 2: Supreme Court and argued that case with that jar of
Speaker 2: mustard in my left hants pocket. This was a case
Speaker 2: that all of my colleagues said, there's no way you're
Speaker 2: going to win this. Well, I won five to four.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there was the mustard that made a difference.
Speaker 2: And it was at that time that I knew I
Speaker 2: needed to plot and plan my exit from law, and
Speaker 2: one day I would found the National Mustard Museum, which
Speaker 2: I did, and it opened in let's see, it would
Speaker 2: have been April of nineteen ninety two, and it's been
Speaker 2: growing ever since, and we have over six thousand different mustards.
Speaker 2: We have a lot of I think, pieces of great
Speaker 2: mustard art, old mustard tins, old mustard pots, old mustard advertisements,
Speaker 2: because mustard goes back centuries and if you know that
Speaker 2: mustard before antibiotics and aspirin was probably the most popular
Speaker 2: prescribed medicine that doctors used. And I think if you're
Speaker 2: looking for the origin of what we know as mustard,
Speaker 2: go back to about the twelfth or thirteenth century, where
Speaker 2: you will find the monks of the old Burgundian town
Speaker 2: of Dijon. Get it Dijon, but the monks were making
Speaker 2: what we know as mustard. Curiously, there are no Dijon
Speaker 2: factories within the city limits of dijonre One of the
Speaker 2: things we do at the Mustard Museum is we coordinate
Speaker 2: the International Worldwide Mustard Competition, and it's held every year.
Speaker 2: We've been doing it for about twenty years, and mustards
Speaker 2: arrive from all over the world, because you know, mustard
Speaker 2: is universal. It's something that almost every culture knows about
Speaker 2: and uses. And every year you're about three hundred different
Speaker 2: mustards that are judge blind in seventeen different categories. Because
Speaker 2: that's the beauty of mustard. There's sweet mustards, there's Dijon mustards,
Speaker 2: there's grainy mustards, there's herb mustards, there's fruit mustards, there's
Speaker 2: exotic mustards. There's a specific category for deli mustards and
Speaker 2: we taste those with the pastrami. There's so many different flavors,
Speaker 2: curry mustards. We have tasted chocolate mustards. That's I think
Speaker 2: the beauty of it. And you can find different uses,
Speaker 2: of course, for all of them. Now, one of the things, though,
Speaker 2: that we have found here in the US is that
Speaker 2: it's sometimes difficult to get children to eat mustard. And
Speaker 2: you know, in France it has never been a problem.
Speaker 2: Children grow up eating you know, good strong mustard. But
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's this thing about people just
Speaker 2: like sweet, mild things. That's a real problem. And probably
Speaker 2: the number one selling condiment is salsa. Ketchup I think
Speaker 2: comes in number two mustard, and of course you have
Speaker 2: to remember it's a serving of mustard. It doesn't take
Speaker 2: a lot of mustard to give a lot of flavors,
Speaker 2: so you're not gonna need as much. I mean, you
Speaker 2: need a lot more ketchup. And I don't understand why
Speaker 2: here in this country people insist on dipping French fries
Speaker 2: in ketchup. It's just it makes no sense. And there
Speaker 2: are people who, believe it or not, will put mayonnaise
Speaker 2: on a corn beef or pastrami sandwich, you know, and
Speaker 2: that I mean that to me should be illegal. Also,
Speaker 2: people who put ketchup on hot dogs and brought worse. No,
Speaker 2: you just don't do that. You know, For example, in Chicago,
Speaker 2: you know which is famous for the Chicago hot dog,
Speaker 2: which has yellow mustard, not brown mustard, neon, green, relish,
Speaker 2: sport peppers, celery, salt, maybe a little wedge of tomato,
Speaker 2: a pickle. It's really one of the great taste treats
Speaker 2: of Chicago. There are many hot dog stands in Chicago.
Speaker 2: If you go into them and you ask for ketchup,
Speaker 2: they will refuse to serve you. Good for them, Good
Speaker 2: for them. One of the things that we've done that
Speaker 2: I've done is I've written a children's book called Mustard
Speaker 2: on a Pickle, and it's about a little boy who
Speaker 2: loves mustard so much that he puts it on everything.
Speaker 2: I'll give you a little taste of it. Is that.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay. I like mustard on my toast. I like
Speaker 3: mustard on a roast. But what I really like the
Speaker 3: most is mustard dribbled on a ghost. Can you be
Speaker 3: trusted without mustard?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. Oh you would stink. So don't
Speaker 2: get flustered. Eat your mustard. I like mustard on a pickle.
Speaker 2: I would even pay a nickel for just a teeny
Speaker 2: tiny squirt of mustard on my uncle's shirt. Everything tastes
Speaker 2: good with mustard, even plums and frozen custard. I like
Speaker 2: mustard in the air and mustard at the county fair.
Speaker 2: Putting dijon on a bond, slurping yellow in the sun.
Speaker 2: That's mustard on a pickle. So this is what I do.
Speaker 2: It's just kind of an exciting thing to do. And
Speaker 2: I love just being at the museum with all my mustards.
Speaker 1: And what a great piece of work by Monty Montgomery
Speaker 1: are our producer from Hillsdale College, by the way, a
Speaker 1: graduate of Hillsdale College, and find such great quirky stories
Speaker 1: for us. My goodness, this was a really good one.
Speaker 1: From going and arguing cases in the US Supreme Court
Speaker 1: and by the way, attributing a winning argument to the
Speaker 1: mustard in his pocket, to founding the National Mustard Museum
Speaker 1: in Middleton, Wisconsin. We're talking about Barry Levinton and we
Speaker 1: thank him or telling his story about his love affair
Speaker 1: with mustard. By the way, my mom was a huge
Speaker 1: collector of these old purses made of metal, and they
Speaker 1: were beautiful, and she collected thousands of them. And we've
Speaker 1: done the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum, a mother and
Speaker 1: daughter combo who went around the country finding salt and
Speaker 1: pepper shaker combos. Also, we've done the Mascot Hall of Fame,
Speaker 1: the story of the National Mustard Museum. Here on our
Speaker 1: American Stories.