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