Author Sherri Brooks Vinton, of Put’em UP! Fruit and Put’em UP! fame, notes that mostardas have long histories. They were created in medieval Italy when sugar and mustard where used to preserve fruit. Sugar and mustard were then affordable only by the upper classes, so mostardas have always been associated with that upper crust of society.

Originally, mostardas were an accompaniment for meats, but more and more they are served as a paring for cheeses. Suzen makes jars and jars of mostarda, offering her clients at Cooking by the Book a greeting appetizer of soft cheeses and home-made mostarda.

Oh, what is a mostarda? It’s a condiment made of candied fruit in a mustard-flavored syrup. You can use, literally, any fruits. So, whatever Suzen has on hand goes into the pot. The picture above has some raisins and apricots. But peach, pear, and berry flavors have graced our tables.

Your imagination has unlimited opportunity here. No two batches will be quite the same — the relative ripeness of the fruit and its sugar content is going to make each batch just a little or a lot different. You can change the amount of dry mustard and different brands of dry mustard will engender different flavors. You could bypass tradition and add a little curry or chile powder. They would have understood that experimentation in medieval Italy.

Making this condiment is fun. If you love cheese and crackers, a mostarda is a must, someone once tried that will be repeated on every occasion. And this recipe from preservation expert Sherri Brooks Vinton is just about perfect. Sherri’s original recipe does call for bottled lemon juice but Suzen uses fresh squeezed and I’ve put that into the recipe below.

Fresh local fruits have begun to appear at many of our farmers markets. You can make your own fresh mostardas from now until deep into the fall.

Fruit Mostarda

Yield: about 4 cups

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons dry mustard

2 cups fruity red wine

2 quarts fruit (about 3 pounds), stemmed, peeled, pitted, and diced [whatever!]

3 cups sugar

½ cup apple cider vinegar

¼ cup mustard seeds

¼ cup lemon juice

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

½ teaspoon salt

Preparation:

In a small bowl, whisk the dry mustard with 1 tablespoon of the wine to make a slurry. Combine the slurry, the remaining wine, and the fruit, sugar, vinegar, mustard seeds, lemon juice, pepper, and salt in a large nonreactive pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer vigorously until the liquid is reduced by half and the cherries I become soft and begin to lose their shape, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Remove from the heat. Allow the mostarda to rest for 5 minutes, giving it an occasional gentle stir to release trapped air. It will I thicken slightly. Skim off any foam.

To store, you can officially can use the boiling water method for long term storage. Suzen prefers to simply put the cooled mostarda in sterile jars — just run through the dishwasher — and store in the refrigerator. It will last there for up to 3 weeks. Then it’s time for the next batch!

Source: Put’em UP! Fruit by Sherri Brooks Vinton [Storey, 2013]

Photo Information: Canon T2i, 18-55mm Macro Lens, f/4, 1/40^th second, ISO-3200