Passing Mustard

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/08/2018 (2827 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you’re headed to the St. Norbert Farmers’ Market this Saturday, make sure to stop by Carly Minish-Wytinck’s vendor table to wish her congratulations… twice.

Minish-Wytinck is the brains behind Smak Dab, an award-winning, made-in-Manitoba gourmet mustard company. Not only is Saturday National Mustard Day, a “holiday” that’s been feted on the first Saturday in August since 1988, this weekend also marks the affable entrepreneur’s first wedding anniversary.

“Last summer, everyone naturally assumed my husband Josh and I chose (National Mustard Day) for our wedding day on purpose. The fact of the matter is I’d only heard about it in passing and had no idea when it actually fell until my maid of honour said, ‘Carly, you do know your wedding is on National Mustard Day, right?’” Mynish-Wytinck says between bites of a bran muffin (In answer to everybody’s first question: yes, when the 27-year-old Red Seal chef plays the murder mystery game Clue, she always chooses Colonel Mustard as her character pawn).

“But now that I know it’s kind of perfect, don’t you think, because we’ll be celebrating our anniversary and National Mustard Day around the same time every year for the rest of our lives.”

● ● ●

Minish-Wytinck grew up in Minitonas, about 10 kilometres from Swan River. She credits her paternal grandfather, a hardware store owner, for her business acumen and her maternal grandmother, “a crazy-good chef,” for her deftness in the kitchen.

“Some of her talent must have rubbed off on me because in Grade 10 I started taking cooking classes at Swan Valley Regional Secondary School; first as more of a joke to fill my blocks except the joke was on me ‘cuz I ended up absolutely loving them.” she says, noting she has a framed copy of one of her late grandmother’s hand-written recipes hanging on her dining room wall as a cherished reminder of the time they spent together preparing family meals.

In 2009, as she was getting set to graduate high school, Minish-Wytinck had a decision to make: because she was pulling straight As in cooking class her parents suggested she apply to a culinary academy for her post-secondary education. However, she was also a star volleyball player— “I’m small but have a really good vertical,” says the former power hitter — and was hoping to continue playing that sport at the university or college level.

Enter the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology: an Edmonton-based polytechnic that not only has a respected women’s volleyball program but offers a two-year culinary arts course to boot.

Diploma in hand, Minish-Wytinck returned to Swan River in 2012. Following a summer job as a cook and “beer girl” at the Swan River Golf and Country Club, she moved to Winnipeg that fall, eventually catching on at Fusion Grill on Academy Road. There, under the tutelage of owner Scot McTaggart and head chef Lorna Murdoch, she began twigging into just how versatile mustard-as-a-cooking-ingredient can be.

“Chef Lorna was using (mustard) in everything — sauces, salad dressings, marinades — it made me realize mustard could be used in all kinds of ways besides simply spreading it on a sandwich, burger or hotdog,” she says.

Curious, Minish-Wytinck began spending her spare time scanning grocery store shelves, researching what sort of Canadian-made mustard options existed for creative home chefs. When she failed to turn up much of anything, she began crafting her own, mixing and matching ingredients until she came up with combinations that worked.

Smak Dab — a tag she settled on because it reminds her how her parents used to say “put some of this smack dab in the middle of your plate” at meal-time — made its official debut at the St. Norbert Farmers’ Market in August 2014. With her mother by her side for moral support, Minish-Wytinck showed up with a selection of flavours including beer chipotle, honey horseradish and Canadian maple. She sold out in a matter of hours.

She grins while recalling the most common query she fielded that Saturday, and on many a Saturday since.

“Lots of people wanted to know what ‘those round things’ (mustard seeds) in my mustard were. Not everyone is familiar with, or has seen, mustard in its pure grain form, as the typical North American is used to seeing mustard processed into a ground, smooth form, such as yellow ballpark mustard.”

By October 2014, Minish-Wytinck was making cold calls to retail outlets, offering samples of her product to store managers in an effort to land a spot in their condiment aisle. Slowly but surely it worked. Not only is Smak Dab currently available in dozens of locations in Winnipeg and throughout Manitoba, it’s also on sale at select stores in Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

At least once a month Minish-Wytinck makes the five-and-a-half-hour drive to Swan River, where her mustard, which now comes in six varieties, is produced. Brushing away a tear, she admits she finds it difficult to discuss her “hometown team” without getting choked up.

“Both my parents are involved, which is wonderful,” she says. “They were semi-retired when I started the business but immediately said ‘we want to help, let us be your production crew,’” she says, scrolling through her phone to find a picture of Blair and Jill Minish hard at work.

“My 87-year-old grandfather, Glen Henderson, is part of the gang, too, and that’s something that’s very, very special to me. He’s a widower and being in the kitchen every week lending a hand has given him a real sense of purpose.”

Minish-Wytinck’s family also shows up regularly in the 35-page cookbook she publishes twice a year, all proceeds from which go to Habitat for Humanity’s Women Build Program. Her latest edition, The Flavours of Summer, includes a take on her grandmother’s potato salad using Smak Dab’s white wine herb mustard, as well as a recipe for her hubby-approved “sweet and smoky beer wings,” prepared with her beer chipotle flavoured mustard.)

A final thing: if you’re ever in line at Safeway or Sobey’s waiting to pay for a jar of Smak Dab mustard and feel a tap on your shoulder, don’t be alarmed — that’s probably just Minish-Wytinck.

“A couple of times I’ve been at the store when the person ahead of me in line has a jar of my mustard at which point I usually spout out something like, ‘I made that, you know.’

“Sometimes they tell me how they use it at home or all the flavours they’ve tried and when that happens it literally makes my heart soar.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca