Graham Porter Gardening: Where does horseradish come from?

Aug 22 2009 by Our Correspondent, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

IF YOU haven’t guessed what it is, look up what Armoracia rusticana is in a gardening book or on the internet.

It’s horse-radish. You can’t have roast beef without a good horse-radish sauce but where does this hot, tasty material come from before it ends up in a jar on a supermarket shelf?

Apparently the plant has been in cultivation for about 2,000 years, mostly as a medicinal plant for stomach, respiratory and urinary problems.

It is only since the 16th century that it has been used as a food flavouring.

We can use both leaves and roots of this rather gross example of the Brassica family, although few will bother to harvest the fresh, young springtime foliage for use in salads. Dig up a horseradish plant in autumn and you will find the long, thick, often branched taproot that is used to produce our familiar sauce.

This should be washed and grated for use fresh as a condiment with oily and smoked fish such as mackerel or it can be mixed with mustard, vinegar and cream to produce the more familiar sauce.

Heated up, it will loose virtually all of its pungency.

For more information on this essential ingredient in our traditional Sunday dinner, why not visit www.thehorseradishcompany.co.uk and find out more about the 100 tonnes of roots that they harvest annually?