Bertman Original Ballpark Mustard

Bertman Foods Co. was started in the 1920’s by Joseph “Joe” Bertman. Born in Lublin, Poland in 1902, Joseph Bertman was 6 when he immigrated to Cleveland.

He began the company in a garage at the Bertman home at East 147th Street near Kinsman, where spices and pickles were processed and packaged. He would rise at 4 a.m. every morning to begin peddling his products.

Bertman was an old-fashioned businessman who could be making sales calls, loading trucks, reviewing books, or buying produce on any day. The firm relocated to 653 E. 103th Street by the mid-1930s, and was then known as the Bertman Pickle Co. Bertman supplied food products to a variety of institutions, caterers, and ball parks -- including League Park and later to Cleveland Municipal Stadium, home to the Cleveland Indians.

Bertman's Original Ball Park Mustard is the company's best-known product. Bertman wasn't satisfied with the yellow mustard being served at Cleveland's League Park, then the home of the Cleveland Indians. So, he came up with something new. Bertman Original Ball Park Mustard was born -- and the recipe's remained the same ever since.

“Ballpark mustard” has been a fixture at the city’s baseball games since the 1930s, making its path through the various homes of the Cleveland Indians and finding its way into everything from grilled cheese sandwiches to homemade barbecue sauces at the city’s various restaurants today.

Until the early 1970s it was only sold in gallons, but afterwards was carried by supermarkets. It was available at the Cleveland Stadium as well as the new baseball park.

Bertman himself said Cleveland Stadium was his first customer in 1932, but some sources indicate the mustard was first sold at League Park baseball games in 1938.
Bertman Original Ballpark Mustard

Mustard green in history

Mustard greens are the leaves of the mustard plant, Brassica juncea. It is also known as green mustard.

Brassica juncea includes brown mustard, Indian mustard, leaf mustard and mustard greens.

The term mustard comes from the use of the seeds to form a sweet ‘must’ a component of old wines.

Mustard greens are native to the Himalayan region of India, where they have been cultivated for more than 5,000 years.

It must have migrated eastward early in its domestication to establish secondary centers of diversity in central and western China, eastern India, and Burma as well as westward to the Near East.

Mustard greens are a notable vegetable in many different cuisines, ranging from Chinese to southern African-American.

In India and China mustard greens has long been used as a medicinal plant, most notably for its anti-inflammatory properties.

The mustard green used in Southern cooking today was not known in colonial America.
Mustard green in history

History of mustard

Mustard seeds have been in culinary and medicinally use since at least the beginning of recorded history.

The French word appeared as mostarde in th 13th century. The Viandier, 100 years later describes a ‘mustard soup’ a broth of wine and water added to the oil in which eggs have been fried and flavored ‘with a little spiced mustard’.

Black mustard was used by the ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks and Romans. The first record of using prepared mustard was by the Romans.

The Romans made great use of mustard seed in medicine and they thought it one of the best remedies for the complaints of the stomach and the lungs.

After the fall of Rome, prepared mustard disappeared from Europe and subsequently the seeds were crushed on dinner plates. By the 13th century, the practice of doing prepared mustard had begin to revive, particularly in France and Germany.

In the Middle Ages, a fixture on every table, made it possible to eat the eternal salt meat - salt pork and also salt beef, goat and mutton with more relish than would otherwise have been possible.

The 18th century saw the advent of mustard with capers, with anchovies, even with champagne – ‘for the ladies’.

In 1720, a Mrs. Clement of Tewkesbury, England successfully milled mustard seed into powder, In 1804, the miller Jeremiah Colman if Norwich concocted a blended mustard from white and black seed, turmeric and flour.

In the 1930s, condiments gained new attention in America and Europe. Advertisements in women’s magazines lauded prepared mustard and sauces as a w way of spicing up otherwise ordinary meals and pleasing bored husbands.
History of mustard