The ever delightfully searing condiment known to us as mustard originated, as so many of our prized refinements, from the days of the Roman Empire. An ancient recipe book details the mixing of grape juice, known in the local tongue as Must, with ground sinapis seeds, to create a heady paste with the descriptive title Burning Must, or Mustem Ardis as the Romans would have it. The longstanding popularity of this condiment into our present day is likely due to the sheer adaptability of the bases of ground mustard seed and vinegar to most any additive one could dream up1
This is all fine and dandy, one might be apt say, yet one question yet remains: By God's Wounds, how did the expression Cut the Mustard originate? Well, my dear friends, you may cease your fretting and prepare for a silent and dignified jubilation, as I have, with the aid of Morris' fine Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, pin-pointed the antecedents of this expressive idiom.
cut the mustard was originally a Western expression, popular among cowboys during the late nineteenth century. If something was "the proper mustard," it was O.K., the genuine article. Andy Adams used the expression this way in his famous Log of a Cowboy , when he wrote that 'for fear the two dogs were not the proper mustard, he had that dog man sue him in court to make him prove the pedigree.' And Carl Sandburg once wrote: 'Kid each other, you cheapskates. Tell each other you're all to the mustard.' The expression cut the mustard then came into vogue, meaning to come up to expectations, to be of good quality. In one of his short stories, written around the turn of the century, O. Henry described a pretty girl in these words: 'She cut the mustard all right.' Nowadays the expression is usually used in the sense of being successful. Of a leading businessman, you might hear it said that 'he really cuts the mustard
And that, my dear readers, is the Proper Mustard indeed.
1among many of the options one can take their mustard prepared with: cider vinegar, prickly pears, the infamous Blut Jolokia Ghost Peppers, persimmons, wasabi (or horse radish to the occidentals), figs, honey pecans, cream, tarragon, beer (a tradition orginated in the Mid-West, naturally, garlick, ginger, Maui Onions, verjuice (the "secret ingredient" in Dijon Mustards), fennel, cinnamon, turmeric, and sandillions more.
