Horseradish

• Meerrettich

  German

• raifort

  French

• Kren

  German — Austria and Bavaria

  The southern term, and the one used on menus there. The same word travelled into Czech, Slovak and Hungarian.

• chrain

  Yiddish

  Refers specifically to the prepared condiment rather than the root, and is sold in white and beetroot-reddened versions.

• khrenхрен

  Russian

• chrzan

  Polish

• seiyō-wasabi西洋わさび

  Japanese

  Literally "western wasabi". The standard trade name in Japan for horseradish, including in the products sold as wasabi paste — it is a declared ingredient there rather than a disguise.

A hard, immediate burn in the nose and sinuses rather than on the tongue, with a bitter, faintly earthy body behind it and a slight sweetness in a very fresh root. It does not linger — the sensation clears within a minute — and it is coarser and less sweet than fresh wasabi.

Nothing at all from the intact root, and within seconds of grating an aggressive, eye-watering vapour that is difficult to stand over. The aroma is the pungency: there is very little else to smell.

A rough tan skin over dense white flesh, grating to a wet off-white. Prepared sauce is white or, in the beetroot versions, deep pink to red.

Fibrous and hard raw, grating to a wet, coarse mash. It never becomes smooth, and a very old root is woody at the core and worth discarding.

• Sinigrin — The glucosinolate stored in the intact root. Not pungent itself and the precursor to everything that is.
• Myrosinase — The enzyme held apart from sinigrin in the living cell. Grating brings the two together and the pungency follows within seconds.
• Allyl isothiocyanate — The product of that reaction, and the whole of the burn.

Grate it, acidify it, and do not cook it. The pungency is created by grating, peaks a few minutes later, and is gone within a couple of hours unless vinegar stops the reaction — which is why every traditional preparation includes vinegar and why the timing of adding it is how strength is controlled. Add vinegar at once for mild, wait two or three minutes for fierce. Heat destroys it outright, so it goes into a hot sauce off the heat at the end, and into a gravy not at all. Work near an open window: the vapour from a food processor full of freshly ground horseradish is genuinely difficult, and opening the lid at arm's length with your face turned away is a real precaution rather than a joke.

A condiment above all: with roast and boiled beef, ham, sausage, smoked and oily fish, and beetroot. It works in cream, in mayonnaise, in mustard-based dressings and in butter, and its natural partners are rich, fatty or smoked things that need something sharp against them. It is also the pungency in most prepared wasabi, in some mustard blends and in cocktail sauce, which is a larger part of its use than its own name suggests. It works with beef, salmon, mackerel, beetroot, potato, apple, cheese and yoghurt.

• grinding — Creates the flavour rather than releasing it. A finer grate ruptures more cells and gives more pungency, and the peak comes a few minutes after grating rather than immediately. Leaving it to stand before adding vinegar is the standard way to make a hot sauce deliberately.
• boiling — Destroys it completely. Heat denatures the enzyme and drives off the volatile product, so horseradish cooked into a sauce contributes a mild cabbage note. It goes in at the end, off the heat, or not at all.

Cut the root and smell the cut face. A good root produces an eye-watering vapour within seconds; a spent one smells faintly of turnip. For a jar, the test is the same in the mouth — if a teaspoon does not reach your nose, the pungency has gone and no amount will bring it back.

• A soft, rubbery or shrivelled root.
• Green shoots at the crown, which means it has started growing rather than that it is unsafe.
• A woody, fibrous core in a thick old root — the outer flesh may still be good.
• Grated root that has browned, which means the pungency has already gone.
• Mould at the cut face or on the surface of a jar, which does mean discarding it.

The fresh root is several times more pungent than anything in a jar and is worth buying if it is going to be used within a week, which is the honest condition — a whole root is a lot of horseradish and it does not keep well once cut into. Grate what is needed, acidify it immediately, and freeze the rest grated rather than trying to keep the root going. For a spoonful in a dressing, the jar is entirely sensible and the difference is smaller than the effort. Buy plain prepared horseradish rather than creamed sauce if you want to control the dairy and the sugar yourself.

• A firm, heavy root with no give and no shrivelling at either end.
• Thick and straight rather than thin and forked — a thin root is mostly skin and fibre.
• No green shoots at the crown and no soft or discoloured patches.
• Bought in winter or early spring where possible, which is when it is lifted and at its most pungent.
• On a jar, read whether it says "prepared horseradish" or "horseradish sauce" — the first is root and vinegar, the second is creamed and much milder.

Graded commercially on diameter, straightness and freedom from forking and woodiness, none of which describes pungency. Steirischer Kren has a protected geographical indication with its own specification. At retail no grade is stated and the season is the better guide.

Brassicaceae

A vigorous perennial with large coarse leaves and a deep white taproot, hardy to well below freezing and invasive enough that it is difficult to remove once established. It rarely sets viable seed and is propagated from root cuttings.

South-eastern Europe and western Asia, with cultivation spreading across Central and Northern Europe in the medieval period.

• DE (Bavaria and Baden) — major producer
• AT (Styria) — major producer. Steirischer Kren holds a protected geographical indication.
• HU — major producer
• PL — major producer
• US (Illinois (Collinsville area)) — major producer. A concentration of American production in the Mississippi bottomlands.
• GB — notable producer

Lifted in late autumn and winter after frost, which is when the pungency is highest. Roots are stored cold and sold through the winter and spring, which is why fresh horseradish is seasonal in a way jarred sauce is not.

1. Washing and trimming — Lifted roots washed, side roots and crown removed, graded by thickness.Why: Preparation for cold storage or for immediate processing.
2. Grating — The root is ground, which ruptures the cells and starts the enzymatic reaction. Industrial grating is done under extraction because the vapour is genuinely difficult to work in.Why: Creating the pungency, which does not exist before this step.
3. Acidification — Vinegar added, and the timing sets the strength of the finished product. Added immediately, it stops the reaction early and gives a milder sauce; added after a few minutes, the isothiocyanates have accumulated and the result is much hotter.Why: Stabilising the pungency at a chosen level and preventing the browning and fading that otherwise begin within the hour.
4. Compounding — Cream, oil, sugar, salt and stabilisers blended in for sauce products. Beetroot juice in the red versions of chrain.Why: A shelf-stable condiment rather than a seasoning ingredient.

Graded on root diameter, straightness and freedom from woodiness and forking rather than on pungency, which is not assessable in the intact root. Steirischer Kren carries a protected geographical indication with its own specification.

Grown from root cuttings, called sets, planted at an angle in deep loose soil in spring and lifted after the first frosts. Side roots are stripped during the season so the main root thickens. Because it regenerates from any fragment left in the ground, a commercial bed is effectively permanent whether or not that was the intention.

Cold-temperate. It needs a real winter — the root is at its most pungent after frost — and it tolerates conditions that would kill most cultivated aromatics. This is close to the opposite of the tropical requirement most spices in this dataset have.

Long established in Central and Eastern Europe, where it is a cold-climate crop rather than an imported spice, and recorded in German and Slavic cooking well before the modern spice trade reached northern Europe. Its association with beef in England and with Passover in Jewish tradition are separate developments: the first is a matter of a cheap local pungency against rich meat, the second of horseradish serving as maror, the bitter herb, in regions where the traditional bitter greens were not available in early spring.

Almost none historically. Horseradish is bulky, perishable, easy to grow in the climates that wanted it, and loses its character on drying — the four properties that keep something out of a spice trade. It became a traded commodity only as a processed sauce.

A long-standing European folk remedy for congestion and as a rubefacient. Recorded as tradition and as context for the culinary use, not as a health claim.