The multi-facial Brown mustard
There should be very few people who have never eaten brown mustard (芥菜，Brassica juncea) in Taiwan. Although many people don’t like fresh brown mustard with a bitter taste, people should be familiar with zha cai（榨菜）, suan cai（酸菜）, fu cai（福菜）, and meigan cai（梅干菜）. You must have eaten the “zha cai with pork noodle soup” at the street and alley noodle shops and the “Steamed pork with meigan zai” during the banquet. No matter if it’s zha cai, suan cai, fu cai or meigan cai, they all can be made of brown mustard.
Brown mustard is a plant of the Brassica genus of the cruciferous family, also known as yi cai (literally meaning cut vegetable) or big vegetables. It is a plant produced by natural hybridization between black mustard (B. nigra) and B. rapa. Some scientists believe that mustard originated from the Middle East, the Mediterranean coast, northern and central Africa, and Central Asia, and some believe that it originated from mainland China; in 1954, the charred mustard seeds that were excavated six thousand years ago at the Banpo site in Xi’an, China, so China is probably also one of the birthplaces of brown mustard.
After being domesticated, brown mustard has produced many different cultivars, which are divided into leaf mustard, root mustard and stem mustard according to their uses. In Taiwan, leaf mustard and stem mustard are grown mainly in the Jianan Plain. In 2016, the mustard produced in Chiayi, Tainan and Yunlin alone accounted for nearly 80% of the country. Among them, Chiayi produced the highest yield, accounting for 35% of the country. In addition to being sautéed or boiled to eat, stem mustard can also be used to make zha cai with its enlarged stem; leaf mustard can be made into suan cai, fu cai, and meigan cai.
What is the relationship between the three types of pickled brown mustard, suan cai, fu cai, and meigan cai? The freshly harvested brown mustard is exposed to the sun for one or two days, then added salt to knead them, then put them in a wooden barrel or jar, and then salt them for seven days. This is called suan cai. For suan cai that you can’t finish eating, separate the stems from the leaves, tear the stems into long strips, wipe with salt, put them in a jar or urn, and place them upside down in the sun to become fu cai; dried leaves are rolled into balls and becomes meigan cai. Prunes made from xuelihong (small-leaf mustard) harvested in different seasons are called winter vegetables or spring vegetables; some people say winter vegetables are “sun-dried or salted Shandong cabbage.” In fact, whether it is suan cai, fu cai or meigan cai, they all originate from the Hakka food-cherishing tradition. Fu Cai was originally called “Fu Cai” （覆菜）because the container was turned upside down during production to drain the excess water. Later, it was renamed “Fu Cai” with a homophonic sound to symbolize good luck. And why zha cai is called this way because the harvested mustard stalks need to be salted and squeezed out of water, and this process has to be repeated three times, so it is called “zha cai”(“zha” meaning squeeze)-don’t write it as “fried” vegetables!
In addition to eating fresh greens and pickled vegetables on the daily table, brown mustard is also indispensable during the New Year. From the northern part of Taiwan to Chiayi, Yilan, Hualien, Taitung, and the southern Hakka people’s New Year’s “longevity dishes” are all it; while Taiwanese from Tainan to Pingtung’s New Year’s longevity vegetables are spinach. The use of brown mustard as a longevity vegetable may be because it has the longest and largest leaves among all vegetables; if spinach is used as a longevity vegetable, adults will say “do not cut it with teeth” during eating! I’m from the north. When I was a kid, I couldn’t understand why there was always a plate of bitter brown mustard on the table during the Chinese New Year. When I grew up, I fell in love with the bitter and sweet taste. The childhood memories of my friends in the south of the Chinese New Year were “the vegetable is so hard to eat all the time. “!
When it comes to brown mustard, I wonder if you have heard this Taiwanese proverb: “June mustards are faking to have stems?” Proverb phrase is used to describe hypocrites, one pretends to be caring on the surface , but is not sincere at all. Why should we say that the brown mustard produced in June is “faking to have stems”? It turns out that although brown mustard can be grown in Taiwan all year round, it will grow better in a colder climate. The brown mustard produced in winter is not only rich in appearance, but also has an enlarged mustard stem in the center. However, the mustard grows in the June of the lunar calendar, due to the hot and humid weather, although the leaves are also long, the appearance looks the same as the mustard produced in winter , in fact, there is no enlarged stem. Because of this, “June mustard” has become a curse.
In addition to the curse of “June mustard”, there are idioms related to brown mustard as “Sumeru can be contained in mustard seed” from the “Vimalakirti Sutra”! It turns out that the seeds of cruciferous plants are very small, but Mount Sumeru is the highest mountain in the Buddhist world; how can the highest mountain be packed into a small mustard seed? In fact, this sentence means that as long as one can open his heart, everything is one and equal regardless of size.
