National Mustard Day is celebrated annually on the first Saturday in August. It is always a fun-filled, sun-splashed day for the whole family. The National Mustard Museum in Wisconsin, is a real nonprofit museum dedicated to all things mustard, and it has been the official sponsor and host of the official Mustard Day event since 1991. Traditionally, their Mustard Day street festival features music, games and other entertainment, as well as hot dogs, brats, FREE mustard sampling, and more.
After a pandemic-induced virtual-only 2020 Mustard Day, the epic street festival is BACK on the Big Yellow Day for 2021. The museum’s (with co-sponsor French’s Mustard) annual homage to the King of Condiments is back to form with their traditional food festival at the corner of Hubbard & Parmenter in Middleton, Wisconsin.
About the National Mustard Museum (from their website):
According to Museum Founder & Curator Barry Levenson, you can blame it all on the Boston Red Sox. In the wee hours of October 28, 1986, after his favorite baseball team had just lost the World Series to the NY Mets, a disconsolate Barry was wandering the aisles of an all-night supermarket looking for the meaning of life. As he passed the mustards, he heard a voice saying: “If you collect us, they will come.” Barry bought a dozen jars of mustard and at that moment resolved to amass the world’s largest collection of prepared mustards.
He continued his work as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Wisconsin during his early years of collecting mustards. While in Washington, DC, to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, he spied a jar of mustard (right) on a discarded room-service tray in the hallway of his hotel and took it for his collection. “I argued a case before the Supreme Court with a jar of mustard in my left pocket,” he says. “We won!” Moments like that cemented his unwavering devotion to mustard. In 1991, Barry left the law to devote himself full-time to collecting mustards and mustard memorabilia.
In 1992, Barry resigned from his job as an Assistant Attorney General to open this highly improbable museum, now one of Wisconsin’s most popular attractions. The Mustard Museum has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, the popular game shows Jeopardy! and To Tell the Truth, and has been included in countless stories on other national television and radio shows, and in major newspapers everywhere.
The Mustard Museum opened to the general public in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, on April 5, 1992. With a burgeoning collection outgrowing its confining walls, the Museum moved to a more spacious facility across the street from the original Mount Horeb site in October of 2000. In 2009, the Museum moved to its current facility in downtown Middleton, Wisconsin, and changed its name to the more encompassing “National Mustard Museum.” ….It is truly a shining temple to the undisputed ‘King of Condiments’.
To find out more about the museum and the updates on the Mustard Festival event, you can check out the Mustard Museum website. And remember, no matter how you say ‘mustard’, we all love it.
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Photo Credit: BeataGFX / Shutterstock.com