A story of mustard, a Russian, and a feeble pansy boy:
I once got the bright idea to challenge my friend who often irritated me with his imperviousness to what should be apocalyptic things. I proposed, in a state of misguided confidence, to do a shot of mustard oil. Mustard oil is a generally unknown ingredient in the green imposter most of us recognize as wasabi[1]. It's vicious. Anyway, he accepted the challenge, gulping the shot of mustard oil with a sweet grin of eagerly anticipated schadenfreude. I reluctantly took my own as pledged. The wretched agony that ensued! I writhed and squirmed in an almost hallucinatory pain until I was brought a bushel of fresh basil. Desperate, I chomped every leaf and stem and within minutes was well again, but have not forgotten.
It's still amazing that at no point in modern history we went "actually, why is it legal to call this a thing that it isn't, not even remotely". Imagine if a bunch of companies all sold jars of sticky substance labelled "honey" but with the ingredients list being "high fructose corn syrup, water, natural colouring and flavouring". Truly baffling.
I once got the bright idea to challenge my friend who often irritated me with his imperviousness to what should be apocalyptic things. I proposed, in a state of misguided confidence, to do a shot of mustard oil. Mustard oil is a generally unknown ingredient in the green imposter most of us recognize as wasabi[1]. It's vicious. Anyway, he accepted the challenge, gulping the shot of mustard oil with a sweet grin of eagerly anticipated schadenfreude. I reluctantly took my own as pledged. The wretched agony that ensued! I writhed and squirmed in an almost hallucinatory pain until I was brought a bushel of fresh basil. Desperate, I chomped every leaf and stem and within minutes was well again, but have not forgotten.
Mustard can be dangerous. But I do love Colman's.
1. Most 'wasabi' isn't wasabi.