Grape mustard is made from cooked grape must to which seasonal fruit is added, such as quince, pumpkin, pears, figs, plums, walnuts, toasted hazelnuts, orange and lemon peel. It has the consistency of a jam and the dark color is due to the use of grape must, usually it is: Barbera, Dolcetto, Nebbiolo and Muscat. It is absolutely not spicy. The production area includes the territories of Monferrato alessandrino and casalese in which it is called "mostarda d’uva monferrina" and those of Asti and Cuneo where the product is called "Cognà".
The ancient recipe has been handed down from farmstead to farmstead with obvious changes in the ingredients according to the fruit available at the time of preparation. Oral evidence gathered in the places where it was produced shows that ‘Cognà was the sauce of the poor’.
An extensive work on medieval food in Piedmont reveals the presence in almost all family inventories of a mortar, obviously used for salt, but also specifically of a ‘molinetum lapidis pro mostarda’. Although it is not easy to identify, most of the mustard must have been made from grape must.
