Recently, about midway through an intense viewing of the Daytona 500, the first pangs of hunger began to gnaw through my stomach. What, I asked myself, could taste better than a hot dog while watching a car race?
During one of the many commercial breaks, I managed to locate a couple of wieners hidden in the far reaches of the refrigerator, and commenced to nuke them in the microwave. I thought of all the "racetrack steaks," as my father always calls them, that I'd consumed at various southern California drag strips and other racetracks, and how they were always cooked 25 at a time on an immense griddle.
Microwaves! What is this world coming to?
Then, after finding a couple of stale buns in the bread drawer, I went hunting for the required bottle of bright yellow mustard. My partner, the Lady Marjorie, must have 15 different kinds of mustard in the kitchen. There are big jars in the refrigerator, little jars in the refrigerator door, and I'm sure there are numerous containers of "dried" around someplace, if I'd only look.
Every package is different. There's brown stone-ground, prepared according to the secret recipe of some unpronounceable monastic order in eastern Europe; Grey Poupon by the quart; various little bottles of designer mustard from numerous, equally small, chichi gourmet shops; and somewhere, I hoped, there might even be a little jar of chrome-yellow French's.
As I searched, I remembered a dab of mustard trivia from my past life down in California. When I went to elementary school there, you learned about the history of the state during the history segment of class each day in the fourth grade.
For instance, as part of the early settlement of the state, the Spanish developed 21 missions that stretched north from San Diego to San Francisco.
The monks, as they walked from mission to mission, would scatter mustard seed along the way, marking the trail to avoid getting lost. Instead of having to rely on the somewhat questionable maps of the period, they'd need only follow the path of the golden blooms.
The monks probably didn't take into account the hardiness of the mustard plant in the California climate, or realize that it was such a prolific plant. When I lived there, there was still mile after mile of empty land filled with mustard. You couldn't have followed it anywhere.
Continuing my search for the ever-elusive yellow condiment, I came across a jar of a coarse-ground German variety that took me back to yet another life. (I seem, at times, to have lived more lives than Shirley MacLaine). This one I lived in Detroit. We were on our way to yet another car race, and we were cutting across the middle of Ohio when we came to the town of Bucyrus.
This sleepy little German burg is somewhat famous for the huge, earth-moving steam shovels that are built there, as well as the proud German heritage that flourishes in the area. On the particular weekend we drove through, some sort of festival was in full swing, and the main street was lined with booths offering tasty temptations.
"Let's stop," my companion urged. "We haven't eaten since Detroit, and I'm famished." I pulled the car to a stop in front of a tavern that had a number of backyard-type barbecue grills set up on the sidewalk, where they were cooking bratwurst.
We filled up on the sausages-spread thick with the robust brown mustard-along with sauerkraut and sips of heady beer. We were so entranced that we almost missed the race.
I was still digging through the kitchen cupboards, the refrigerator and anyplace else I could think of where mustard might be stored-looking for your basic American yellow mustard while trying hard not to miss the first stock car race of the year-when my partner returned from the shopping trip she'd been on to avoid the race.
"Have we got any plain ol' mustard?" I asked in desperation.
She made a quick reconnaissance sweep through the refrigerator and shook her head. "Nope. Here, try some of this."
I tentatively opened the small bottle of brownish-yellow paste-a combination of mustard and horseradish. I spread some on my hot dog.
"That's mustard with horsepower!" was all I was able to gasp as the tears ran down my cheeks.
Gary McDaniel lives in Magnolia.[[In-content Ad]]
