NCHA’s McCoy cuts the mustard

A family recipe turned into a family enterprise this year, when Shawn McCoy and his mother, Mickey, began to commercially produce Mickey’s Mustard, at the urging of friends who were already hooked on the tasty condiment.

Mickey first cooked up a batch of her now famous mustard 30 years ago, improving on a recipe that she had on hand and adding her own “secret” ingredient – banana peppers that she grew on the McCoy farm near Canton, Ohio. Soon the whole family, including Shawn’s father, Mike, were pitching in to help can mustard at harvest time.

In addition to banana peppers, Mike and Mickey also raised Haflingers, light draft horses whose origins trace to medieval Austria. So when Shawn moved to Texas and went to work for the National Cutting Horse Association in 1996, as director of advertising for the Cutting Horse Chatter, it seemed a perfect fit.

Several years ago, after Susan Waggoner, of Waggoner Ranch and High Brow Cat fame, expressed an interest in Haflingers during a conversation with Shawn, he arranged a get-together for the Waggoners and several Haflinger breeders at the McCoy’s farm during the Quarter Horse Congress in Columbus.

Susan Waggoner didn’t end up with a Haflinger, but she did acquire a taste for the mustard that Mickey served with hors d’ouerves and was soon ordering it by the case, as were other customers.

Currently Shawn is working out details for marketing and distribution. His first step was to enter Mickey’s Mustard in the annual Fiery Food Challenge produced by Chile Pepper magazine. Winners of the contest, with categories from barbeque to salsa, and everything hot and spicy in between, will be announced during ZestFest, held September 8 through 10, at the Will Rogers Center in Fort Worth, Texas.

While Mickey’s Mustard, a tangy, sweet-hot sauce, fits the bill for mustard, it is more more versatile than mustard – think catsup with peppers instead of tomatoes. Here’s one of my favorite recipes:

Mickey’s Harvard Beets