horseradish

Gold's Hot Horseradish is my favorite. I'll put a healthy schmear on a roast beef sandwich. It won't have you in tears but if you get a nose full of the fumes, watch out. Not sure if it's available everywhere, from Brooklyn NY.
 
i’m getting bored with hot sauces, need something that will have me in tears. haven’t really tried horseradish but i know the good stuff is painful, any recommendations?
Horseradish brings more tears then anything else I've tried. Love it!
 
Used to eat a lot of horseradish years ago. There was a lot of variance in the hotness from batch to batch. Horseradish will hit you hard in your nasal passages but it's mild in your GI tract so you won't pay for it the next morning. I only like real horseradish. That creamy stuff is bleh.

Get some Tom Yum soup at a Thai restaurant. That will wake you up.
 
Agree on the Golds brand. Their cocktail sauce for shrimp etc. also has a healthy dose of horseradish. Popular on the East Coast. Not sure if they ship it. Needs to be refrigerated.
 
i’m getting bored with hot sauces, need something that will have me in tears. haven’t really tried horseradish but i know the good stuff is painful, any recommendations?
Do you have any Jewish or Polish delis near you? If so, look there for something that's fresh "home-made" locally.

The large / conglomerate makers of horseradish are a hit or miss for me, but most are rather weak.
 
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When I was in college back in the mid to late 1960's, I had a summer job at a frozen food plant for two summers. While we normally did green beans, corn, etc, someone in the head office got the idea of processing horseradish and freezing it for sale as a frozen food. So they bought a large truckload of horseradish root, set up an electric grinder that had to be manually fed and hired a guy to grind the horseradish. So he sat on a stool and started grinding the roots. The ground horseradish fell, along with the juices, into a box that was lined with a plastic bag and accumulated as he ground the stuff. About an hour later he had to be rushed to the hospital as his face, arms and chest were bright red and swollen, Turns out, to grind this stuff in quantity you are supposed to suit up and wear a respirator! So it can be a real sinus opener!
 
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Try real Wasabi. Not that store bought stuff, real fresh wasabi.

Wow, you will discover sinus you never knew you had.

Rod

Most of the commercial pastes are made with horseradish and food coloring. Even the biggest brand in Japan (S&B) doesn't have any real wasabi in it.

I heard real wasabi is actually quite mild. It's the horseradish substitutes that are more likely to sting.

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Many people mistakenly believe that the sinus-clearing pungency of wasabi paste (served in mid-range restaurants) and wasabi powder (used at the cheapest places) is the flavour of Wasabia japonica; a friend who has a Japanese restaurant says some of his customers complain that the freshly grated stuff he serves has no flavour. Wasabia japonica, in fact, is much more subtle; it has a mild pungency and gentle heat. The powder and paste are actually made from a plant from the same Brassicaceae family as wasabi: horseradish, which is much larger, with a stronger, more fiery taste.

There are a few American sources for real wasabi. There's one farm in Oregon. I read about one farmer who tried to do it and it was really difficult for a number of reasons. The growers needed to be able to get the plants and have the rhizomes split like other roots. I think they can be grown by seed, but that's like apples from seed where it might not be very good. The farm tried to get books on how to grow wasabi, but had to enlist someone in Japan to obtain and translate it. This wasn't easy because they weren't terribly keen to allow anyone outside of Japan to grow it. The article I read (over a decade ago) mentioned that the farm got mysterious Asian people driving up to the farm and taking pictures from outside until confronted. The owner suspected that it might have been someone from the Japanese Consulate.

I've seen one place that sells real wasabi here in the trimmed rhizome form. It's something like $80/lb.

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I don't have a whole lot of experience with horseradish at home, but I do enjoy horseradish on prime rib - especially at buffets. They usually have either grated horseradish or creamy horseradish prepared with sour cream and mustard.
 
i’m getting bored with hot sauces, need something that will have me in tears.
Why? I never understand why people eat overly hot food other than trying to show others how manly they are, eating it. It doesn't ad much in flavor when your taste buds are on fire. You might as well eat a cup of broken glass because that's what it feels like the morning after.
 
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