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by zenron 1724 days ago
Mustard was my go-to condiment. I loved Dijon and stone grounds Dijon's. However, I lost my taste and smell in 2020 due to Covid-19. When my taste came back everything was fine but my smell didn't return for months. When it did, MANY things have an acrid taste to it. Dijon mustard, Pepsi, Coke, even Iceburg lettuce in different cuts (shredded is fine but in whole leaf I have issues) all taste the same and its so acrid that I can't touch the stuff any more.

Bog standard French's Yellow Mustard still rocks even if the taste is a little dulled due to my new smeller.

So the story is a bitter sweet for me... almost literally lol.

4 comments

Same taste/smell story! Had Covid March of 2020, lost taste/smell and now most mustards, Dijons and greens (cabbage, iceberg) taste "acrid". This is the first time I've read someone else having this specific taste change. DM me because I'd like to collaborate to find what the common ingredient might be.
Have you also gotten phantosmia with smoke/cigarette smell? The initial reports that Covid was a respiratory disease turns out to be insufficient to describe what goes on. The virus gets into your brain and scrambles it up a bit, with varying severity. (Thankfully most people don't get it so bad.) Part of that damage occurs to the part of your brain that interprets smells - hence the phantosmia. Others have had luck retraining their brain using a collection of smells in jars.
Have not experienced this
> DM me because I'd like to collaborate

HN doesn’t have DMs …

Link to my website is in my profile for anyone who wants to reach out
Best dijon I have found is called "Maille L'Originale." Got it first in the French Antilles but then found it widely distributed in the US. Highly recommend.
Here I am putting that name through a search engine before realising it’s the exact brand of mustard sitting in my cubboard, which I ate for lunch this afternoon. My search is over.
Yeah it's in practically every grocery store where I am in Canada.
80% of Maille’s mustard seeds come from Canada.
according to wikipedia, a long time ago the French makers of Grey Poupon bought out the competing French brand Maille.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Poupon#History

For those that like their mustard a little more raw, Maille Wholegrain is my mustard of choice. I keep several others (A deli, a horseradish, a brat) around but that's the true best.
I found that the Maille mustard they sell in the UK is heavily diluted with oil compared to the one in France. In the exact same packaging.
My new favorite is the dill mustard that IKEA sells. (Seriously. It's awesome.)
I completely agree - the IKEA dill mustard is quite delicious: the flavour is remarkably well balanced, and the mustard itself is creamy but still has a bit of bite to it.

My overall favourite mustard is Löwensenf extra sharf (extra hot) mustard. It's the one in the red bottle, and it's a good hot mustard - I find it's really hard to get a good hot mustard in North America, so that's my go to.

I did not find it outside of Hungary, yet, but there they have a mustard mixed with horseradish[1].

Since this type of mustard is unknown where I live, I tried to recreate it, but never achieved the same balance as in the commercial product, which is sad, because, in my opinion, it's a match made in heaven! It may be, that they use a milder mustard, than average, to balance out the hotness of the horseradish.

[1]: https://www.univer.hu/en/products/mustard/horseradish-mustar...

i know several varieties of beaver brand mustard have horseradish. example:

https://www.beavertonfoods.com/product/beaver-deli-mustard-1...

Maille has a horseradish mustard ("moutarde au raifort" in French), and it's one of my favorites.
Mustard mixed with horseradish is also common in Romania.
This is my Favorite, it’s a balsamic mustard http://foxsmarvelous.com/

It’s good enough to eat by itself on crackers alone.

weird how that works. For me eggs are now a no-go.