Mustard Seeds

Pungent, hot and aromatic with an acrid taste, mustard seeds have been in culinary and medicinal use since at least the beginning of recorded history. Species of the mustard plant, a Brassica, provide the yellow (also referred to as white), brown and black mustard seeds we use today. The species that produces the yellow seeds grows freely across much of Europe and North America and is grown in most temperate countries; black mustard is native to southern Europe and temperate western Asia, and India is the home of the plant that produces brown mustard seeds. The most commonly available seeds are the yellow and the brown, with the more pungent black seeds only available in South-East Asia and India.