My jar of mustard was so spicy it made my eyes water and sent me on an obsessive quest to find out why

The search for an answer took us to a mustard dynasty in France, a Hamilton mustard mill and Palliser's Triangle. 

Star reporter Jake Edmiston set out to solve the mystery of the extra spicy mustard in his fridge.

The strange thing about that night was no one liked my mustard chicken. I could tell from the silence around the table. It was not a contented silence and I was frustrated, because mustard chicken is usually a hit in our house, and nothing was all that different this time. I used the same chicken, the same big spoonful of mustard in the sauce. 

The mustard did come from a new jar, but it was the same brand I buy every time, Maille Dijon Originale. It’s luscious and smooth. Sometimes, I’ll eat a whole spoonful by itself.

Later, unable to help myself, I returned to the jar and had a taste. It was much, much stronger than usual. My cheeks flushed. My eyes watered. 

For weeks afterward, whenever I opened the fridge, a question gnawed at me: Why is this mustard so spicy?

Eventually, I packed the jar in a cooler and went to see Elspeth Copeland, a professional taste tester and product developer I know in Toronto. She has the best palate I’ve encountered in 10 years of writing about the food industry. North American food brands call her when their product suddenly, inexplicably changes — a surprisingly common occurrence in food manufacturing — and she can usually identify the problem in the factory or the supply chain just by tasting the product. Once, I watched her eat a cherry and deduce that a cherry salesman likely left the fruit too long in the back seat of a car.

Elspeth Copeland has a gift. She can identify what’s wrong with a food producer’s factory, supply chain, or formula, just by tasting the product.