Horseradish: Hands Down Best Dish on Passover
Every year, the fare at my grandmother Annie’s Seder table for Passover in Savannah was always the same: matzah ball soup, chopped liver, roasted chicken, yada yada. Same with probably every other Seder table in America at the time. The same every year. Nothing much changed. Year in and year out. Except for one thing: the homemade horseradish. And to this day, it’s my hands’ down favorite, probably because it was the only thing unpredictable on the dinner table.
Let’s be a bit more precise. There were always two versions of horseradish on the table. There was the red one, mixed with beets and bought from the store. The stuff held no interest for me at all. And then there was the palid white homemade version, which I loved. And a large part of the romance was simply this: You never really knew what to expect from this dish. Sometimes it was strong enough to clear your sinuses into the next next decade. And sometimes it was just mildly brain-numbing. And, of course, there was always a lengthy and I mean lengthy debate, always precipitated by my irascible great uncle Scribe, my grandmother’s baby brother, on how this particular horseradish stacked up to previous years.
I look forward to this jewish holiday in our soul food kitchen primarily because of the coming attraction of horseradish. Because you can more or less only buy fresh horseradish root two times a year here in Tel Aviv: in the fall, right before the high holiday season and in the spring, right before Passover. I buy up a ton, making enough of the stuff to last 6 months at a pop, which everyone says doesn’t work, but trust me, this stuff has staying power.
The first time I made a batch of horseradish, I packed it tightly into a mason jar and then made a fatal mistake. I thought it was odd that the aroma wasn’t overpowering the kitchen. In fact, you really couldn’t tell that anything explosive was near at home. Virtually no smell at all. So I bent down to take a small whiff from the mouth of the jar. Holy fuck. I’m amazed I have a nose left.
Anyway, I make enough to send goodly amounts to any family members interested (read: my kids, who are fanatics about spicy dishes). And the rest really does last me six months until the next holiday season rolls around. It goes on most everything I eat, for a while — and then becomes a staple ingredient in my white Alabama bbq sauce (an ironic juxtaposition I quite enjoy, btw).
Horseradish is ostensibly on the dinner table during Passover to remind us of the bitterness of being slaves in the Land of Egypt long ago. For me, it’s more a symbol of liberation from the otherwise bland fare of tradition and traditional cooking.
