{"id":14520,"date":"2019-11-01T13:31:58","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T13:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.golive.clarku.edu\/news\/2019\/11\/01\/do-you-know-the-mustard-man\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T15:36:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T19:36:05","slug":"do-you-know-the-mustard-man","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2019\/11\/01\/do-you-know-the-mustard-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Do you know the mustard man?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<p class=\"intro news-subhead\">Barry Levenson\u2019s museum pays homage to the \u2018king of condiments\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>What makes a job cool? Is it fun, rewarding, unusual, or a combination of all three? \u2192 Gotta be&nbsp;<\/em><em>all three. \u2192 While there aren\u2019t enough truly cool jobs to go around, our alumni seem to have landed more than their fair allotment. So does that mean Clarkies are inherently cooler than everyone else? Read on, and decide for yourself.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not every attorney gets to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. And of those who have, it\u2019s a safe bet only one has done it with a jar of mustard in his pocket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright wp-image-10757 size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/clarknow-clark-magazine-fall-2019-cover-5.jpg\" alt=\"Clark Magazine Fall 2019 cover\" class=\"wp-image-10757\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Story originally published in <em>Clark<\/em> magazine, fall 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Barry Levenson \u201970 was an assistant attorney general for the state of Wisconsin in 1987. On the way to court, he saw on a room service tray a small unopened jar of mustard. He had just begun collecting different types of the condiment, so he picked it up and put it in his pocket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI argued that case \u2014 an important Fourth Amendment case, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ojp.gov\/ncjrs\/virtual-library\/abstracts\/parole-and-probation-searches-aftermath-griffin-v-wisconsin\">Griffin v. Wisconsin<\/a> \u2014 with that jar of mustard in my left pants pocket. And I won the case,\u201d he remembers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Supreme Court Mustard holds a special place in the <a href=\"https:\/\/mustardmuseum.com\">National Mustard Museum<\/a>, which Levenson founded in 1992 (originally as the Mount Horeb Mustard Museum). It moved to its current location in Middleton, Wisconsin, in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve got the world\u2019s largest collection of mustards \u2014 almost 6,200 different kinds \u2014 and hundreds of antique mustard pots and tins,\u201d Levenson says. \u201cThere\u2019s also an exhibit about mustard in medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Levenson, shown in the Higgins University Center dining hall with an armful of Clark University Fiat Mustard, was once <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/CnPAhU3H4mE\">interviewed by Oprah Winfrey<\/a>, and almost appeared in a David Letterman segment on unusual collections. Letterman, over Levenson\u2019s warnings, ate a spoonful of a fiery horseradish mustard and fell to the floor, writhing in agony. Levenson\u2019s segment was cut from the show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why mustard? It all began on Oct. 28, 1986, hours after the Boston Red Sox lost the World Series to the New York Mets. A Worcester native and lifelong Boston sports fan, Levenson was looking for something to take his mind off baseball and ended up wandering the aisles of a local supermarket. He stopped in front of the mustards. \u201cIf you collect us, they will come,\u201d he&nbsp;heard (well, he claims he heard).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And they do. Thirty thousand visitors a year make their way to his museum for exhibits like the Great Wall of Mustard and a new display from Saskatchewan, Canada, the world\u2019s largest exporter of mustard seed. Visitors can take the Curator\u2019s Interactive Food Quiz, consult with confidential condiment counselors about which mustard is best for them, and purchase official&nbsp;memorabilia from Levenson\u2019s mustard \u201cuniversity,\u201d Poupon U.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The museum welcomes 6,000 visitors on the first Saturday of August for the annual <a href=\"https:\/\/mustardmuseum.org\/mustard-day\/\">National Mustard Day<\/a> festival, which Levenson has organized since 1991. This year\u2019s theme was \u201cCarpe Dijon\u201d \u2014 \u201c loosely translated as \u2018Squeeze the Day,\u2019 \u201d he quips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cEvery year, it gets bigger. We have all sorts of mustard games \u2014 ring toss, spinning wheel,&nbsp;fishing for mustard, mustard bowling \u2014 live music, and lots of mustard for the hot dogs and bratwurst,\u201d he says. But don\u2019t expect to see ketchup or mayo. \u201cI\u2019m very much against the&nbsp;lesser condiments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The museum hosts the Worldwide Mustard Competition each spring, with about 300 international submissions, including entries from Romania and Sweden. This year\u2019s favorite was the Moutarde du Meaux, a French mustard whose recipe is unchanged since 1632. \u201cIt\u2019s a favorite of chefs and foodies,\u201d Levenson says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When he\u2019s not curating mustard, Levenson teaches future lawyers about food law. He even wrote a book on food-related legalities, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/uwpress.wisc.edu\/books\/3407.htm\">Habeas Codfish<\/a>\u201d (University of Wisconsin Press, 2001), in which he examines issues like the McDonald\u2019s scalding-coffee case, the cattle ranchers who sued Oprah Winfrey, and how the Mr. Peanut logo shaped trademark laws for the entire food industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Levenson has written two other books and two plays, including \u201cNo One Goes to Hell for the Food,\u201d which was staged in Madison, Wisconsin, in 2018. \u201cIt\u2019s based on a true incident,\u201d he says. \u201cA convicted killer was executed by the state of Oklahoma in 1995. And his last words were, \u2018I didn\u2019t get my Spaghetti-Os.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Levenson insists his greatest joy is interacting with people who are surprised to find visiting a mustard museum is actually a lot of fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sometimes those visitors are Clarkies, which is the coolest part of a very cool job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/clarkuniversity\/docs\/clark_magazine_fall19_web?fr=sY2Q5YzQ3ODE1NzM\">Read more from the fall 2019 issue of&nbsp;<em>Clark <\/em>magazine \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barry Levenson\u2019s museum pays homage to the \u2018king of condiments\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14521,"template":"","meta":{"story_color":"var(--clarku-color-dark-yellow)","story_headerImg":14521,"section_label":"Clark Magazine","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[223,239],"displayed_author":[258],"featured":[],"topic":[232,252,277,234],"class_list":["post-14520","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clark-community","category-worcester-world","displayed_author-melissa-lynch-95-mspc-15","topic-alumni","topic-alumni-stories","topic-clark-university-magazine","topic-clarkives"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.1 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Do you know the mustard man? 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