Paroemiologie Anglo-Latina. By 1810 the London Journal was opining that “mustard seed is now used and esteemed by most of the quality and gentry”. Mustard had truly arrived.

Norwich was a latecomer to the English Mustard saga, rising to prominence after Jeremiah Colman had bought a flour and mustard mill in Stoke Holy Cross on the River Tas, about four miles south of the city, in 1814. Blending brown mustard (Brassica juncea) with white (Sinapsis alba), both grown locally and sold at Wisbech market, his tangy condiment soon found favour. With a branch established in London’s Cannon Street in 1836, by 1851, the year of his death, he had about 100 employees.

Colman’s son, James, died three years later, leaving Jeremiah’s twenty-one year old grandson, Jeremiah James (JJ), to run the company. JJ immediately made his mark on the company, introducing its distinctive bright yellow packaging and bull’s head logo, not any old head but that of the Durham ox. It was more than a passing nod in the direction of Mrs Clements. By that time her company, now named Ainsley’s after her son-in-law, had been acquired by Colman’s.

After moving to larger premises inside Norwich on Carrow Road in 1865, Colman’s was appointed as mustard provider to Queen Victoria the following year and, in 1878, awarded medals for their starch and mustard products at the Paris Universal Exhibition, medals which are still illustrated on their tins. In another ground-breaking move in 1893, they became one of the first food processors to check the quality of their product, employing two chemists to inspect incoming mustard seeds.

After taking over Keen’s in 1903, they became the country’s principal English mustard manufacturer leaving the contributions of Tewkesbury and Durham a distant memory.