by Margaret Williams
photos by Maggie West

Kelly Davis makes people cry. She claims it’s the volatile oils in the seeds she grinds for Lusty Monk mustard. Friends and customers, with tears in their eyes, sometimes plead mercy and ask her to mix a milder mustard. But mild simply isn’t in her  mustard-making repertoire.

The 46-year-old sends everyone home with jars of mustard, along with bumper stickers that read, “Spread the lust” and “Party like it’s 999.” Davis is a self-described “Navy brat” who lived all over the place, earned a bachelor’s degree in history at Western Carolina University, studies Latin for fun so she can translate the first-ever beer book (De Cerivisia) from its medieval Latin to English and plays single mom to two teenagers.

How did such a woman get into mustard making? Blame it on old cookbooks, the fact that mustard goes well with pretzels and beer, and her love of medieval history (her mustard labels feature period art of stoic monks). Davis recalls one of her professors asking what she would do with a bachelor’s in history. She wasn’t sure, but she knew she wanted to figure out a way to combine history and food. The professor replied, “Well, you could just make really old food.”
Five years ago, she stumbled upon a medieval recipe for mustard that piqued both her palate and her intellectual curiosity. Why didn’t people make it fresh at home anymore, Davis wondered, and could she replicate the results? Mustard was once the spice of choice in Europe: before pepper from India came along, diners crushed mustard seeds at the table and sprinkled the coarse result on their food.

It’s easy to make, she explains: Grind seeds, add liquid, salt and spices if you like, and voilà. In her basement commercial kitchen, Davis grinds brown and white mustard seeds in two separate, burr-type grinders, which use a moving grinding-wheel to produce a more consistent flour than the blades in ordinary blenders. She then tosses the coarse flours together, mixing in such ingredients as cider vinegar and “secret” spices (to tell you much more might risk a monk’s curse).

Some medieval monks were forbidden to eat mustard because it was once considered an aphrodisiac, Davis says. (Though others, the "lusty monks," did.) Ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras recommended a mustard poultice to treat scorpion bites. Hence, Davis’s own passionately ardent, piquant Burn in Hell version with chipotle peppers, and her sinus-clearing Original Sin. Mustard—a member of the brassica family that includes broccoli, kale, cabbage and the like—gets its kick from seed oils that transform radically when exposed to a liquid (in World War II, synthetic versions became toxic mustard gas).

Making time to make mustard has not been easy. Davis sums up her work life by saying simply: “I’ve patched together different things.” She worked as a proofreader at a marketing firm in Boulder, Colorado until 1996, when a series of “cosmic events” made her feel it was time to leave. She packed up her kids and a U-Haul, had no job lined up and nowhere to live, but still turned the summer into an adventure. “We lived in a tent,” she says, with no regret and even a dash of nostalgia. “It was a fun, seat-of-my-pants time,” says Davis, who points out that it was a big, comfy tent in the North Mills River campground. By October that year, she and the kids moved into a more solid home and, last year, her brother Scott, an MBA who lives in the Northwest, bought her current home in Weaverville as an investment. She credits Scott with encouraging her to create Lusty Monk last March.

Before creating her own commercial kitchen in the basement, Davis went to “pickle school” at Blue Ridge Food Ventures. Boasting an 11,000-square-foot kitchen and classes and technical support for food-industry entrepreneurs, the program is a collaborative project between the 23-county economic development group, AdvantageWest, and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture. “Pickle school” was all about food processing, and Davis learned a great deal about running a safe and productive kitchen. Her sister attended a similar school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Lusty Monk’s western offices are about to take off.

Davis’s early research suggested it would take about $4,000 to start Lusty Monk. Now, she thinks $20,000 is a more realistic goal for any similar venture. She hasn’t had to seek business loans or other financing. “I’ve been blessed with family investors,” she says. “It’s like we’re getting to play together again.” Davis feels particularly well-supported in Asheville: The graphic artist behind her labels, bumper stickers and posters is Eric Stevens, a friend she met at local publisher Lark Books. Another acquaintance is setting up Lusty Monk’s website and online store. After bottling her first jars last August, Davis brought them to Green Man Brewery where she bartends, and customers started eating mustard with their pretzels and beer. From there, the mustard trail led to Laughing Seed Café, down the street to the Lobster Trap and uptown to Greenlife grocery. Her mustard is now sold in about a dozen Asheville locations.

It’s also sold in Atlanta. Last fall, Davis acquired a list of top gourmet-food stores in Atlanta and did a shotgun mailing, followed by many phone calls. In February, her efforts paid off and Lusty Monk is now at several top Atlanta retail venues. She’s focusing more on the wholesale business for now, collecting a steady base of stores that carry Lusty Monk mustard, and plans to launch an online store by Christmas 2008. Despite her love of hot mustards, she’s also testing a mild honey-mustard recipe that she might call The Altar Boy.

Rising gas prices have a ripple effect, even in the handmade mustard business. Since last year, Davis has seen mustard-seed prices rise by 50 cents a pound. Most mustard seed comes from Saskatchewan province in Canada; there’s no local, high-volume source she can use to avoid rising transportation costs. Gas affects her distribution costs, since she hand-delivers her mustards, even in Atlanta. “I’m so small that any [price increases] hit me harder. You draw up all these plans, then call your distributor [and suppliers] and learn prices have doubled!” Davis says with a groan. On the bright side, Davis adds, “Luckily, the jars haven’t gone up yet.”    

Visit lustymonk.com for more information