FIELDS OF MUSTARD. BANGLADESH

As winter deepens in this country that lies athwart the Tropic of Cancer, the landscape is coloured, across the country, with vast swathes of fields of Mustard, lending an impressive, almost magical quality to the almost endless views across the deltaic plains.

The seeds are squeezed in mills to produce Mustard Oil, widely used domestically in cooking, and also dried as the basic ingredient of the yellow condiment much loved on the dining tables of the world and that so enriched the Colman family of Victorian Britain.  The plants are mulched back to feed the already rich soils.

A by product of Mustard, courtesy of the legendary busy workers on whom it depends, is the Mustard Seed honey. Many corners of the apparently endless fields of mustard are taken up with the tiny homes of these busy bees, to produce one of the tastiest honeys in the world.