Horseradish Processing

[rowan]

Wow, those are impressive. When I had horseradish (It took two years to get rid of the stuff in the garden) I could never get it anywhere near that size.

[reed]

What goes into your recipe? Horseradish, vinegar and salt?

[reed]

Ah, sugar. Just dump a little it to taste I suppose.

[steev]

I like horseradish mixed with beet for the sweetness; actually, I enjoy it fresh-grated straight up, too; 1/4 teaspoon really clears out the cobwebs.

[steev]

Clears out the lungs, the sinuses, even the mind. Tobacco, yes; twenty years, mostly unfiltered Camels; never got the point of filters; they just permitted the use of crappier tobacco/rib. I started smoking for theatre (so cool), but continued for nicotine; stopped when my ex-to-be was pregnant; never went back.

As a designated "goy-boy", I've prolly broken custom more than once at a seder, going back into the horseradish, beyond the ritual "bitter herbs" partaking.

The beet also gives it a pretty color.

Regarding wear on the shoulder: maybe it's time to look into a mill you can crank with a stationary bike; that's how I expect to do my milling; my shoulders aren't a shadow of what they once were; sic transit gloria: a "mile" a day for my daily bread, whatever; scored a stationary bike on the curb, but I'll have to buy the mill.

[walt]

When I used to teaach school in Brewster KS, there was a man in town famous for his horseradish sauce. I managed to get a pint of it and it was wonderful. I asked about his recipe. He said he cleaned the horseradish and put it in the blender. That was it. Some years later I had a garden with horseradish. I tried the recipe. It was great. I don't know why anybody adds anything to it.
Actually I might know why people add things to their horseradish. That same year I ran across some paper test strips in the biology lab. Some investigating (I read the directions) showed me that each strip had a chemical on it that some people could taste, but others can't. Each of those tastes were controled by a single gene. Biology teacher used to pass out the test strips and have students test their families and show how the ability to taste a certain chemical is passed down through generatations.
This went out of style because of lawsuits. Children were finding out they were adopted, when the parents didn't want the child to know. Or fathers were finding out their children had genes that neither he nor his wife had. People get upset over the slightest thing.

[steev]

Got a place to store roots potted in damp sand, like Belgian endive roots?

[steev]

Dunno; never tried that.

[Earl]

Interesting read, I clicked on it because I keep giving the expanding horseradish here away....as far as sweetener and "beets"-I have to wonder what a splash of ground sugar beet would do in a recipe?

[templeton]

I (perhaps foolishly) put in a horseradish plant 2 years ago, in the perennial bed next to the asparagus. It's popping up almost a metre away. I had a little taste last year and it was very nice. When should i dig it and process - end of fall? (I'm hoping the return to our perpetual drought conditions next year will curb its adventurous spirit).
And i missed the scale in the first photo toomanyirons, I thought they were finger thickness! Wow!
T

[steev]

I've not seen any sugar beets grown since the processing plant in Manteca was shut down; the town named "Manteca" (Lard) with a sugar beet plant, had a certain "air" about it. Sigh; more local color rubbed out by gentrification; all those people commuting from the Bay Area where they worked, but couldn't afford to live, couldn't get used to the smell; that's the problem with going and coming; you can't adapt to local conditions; once there were enough of them, they adapted local conditions to them.

Guess I'm just lucky?; the horseradish I planted on the farm nine years ago has never spread beyond a foot-and-a-half round patch; maybe this is the Winter I'll get ambitious; dig it up; see what's up; prolly couldn't hurt.

I've always thought the vinegar was just to keep horseradish from discoloring, if you weren't gonna scarf it right away, like lemon juice on apples, but I may have been misinformed; not the first time, if so.

[reed]

My horseradish also has not spread very much. It's planted in a place where it is free to do so as much as it wants and I hoped it would but after close to twenty years it only takes up maybe a 2 x 3 foot area. It gets quite a bit of afternoon shade, I wonder if that slows it down.

[walt]

Toomanyirons. About the vinegar-less horseradish sauce from the guy in Brewster, KS. I left out, because I didn't realize why it might be important, that he froze his sauce. So did I when I made it. We froze all that wouldn't get used quickly. I have never made horseradish sauce any other way, so I didn't think about the fact that most people don't freeze it. I wonder if canning the sauce quickly would work too. I don't know.

[billw]

I made the mistake of rototilling a forgotten horseradish patch once. I still have volunteers coming up all over the place years later.

[steev]

My horseradish is also in afternoon shade, but I really doubt that that's what's going on; 'kay, I'm gonna dig it up, to see what's the deal. I've never harvested it (it seeming skimpy), but maybe that's the problem: it's felt neglected, poor baby.