...with Sauce on the Side

I remember holding my breath until I was dizzy, loss of consciousness was near as I started seeing black and purple spots.

I remember involuntary tears rolling down my cheeks.  

I remember thinking to myself (because I didn't dare say it aloud) "Man, I hate this."

I'm talking, of course, about being forced against my will (gasp!) to help make home made horseradish sauce as a kid.  But more about that in a minute.

Today's entry is a sort of continuation of a subject I broached back on May 3rd of last year.  I mentioned then that my sister-in-law, Marilyn, had given me an entire box of my mom's cookbooks; an absolute treasure of childhood memories.  

In May, I was giving serious thought to launching a whole new blog devoted entirely to Mom's recipes.  I honestly have enough to post a new recipe a day for about five years.

Instead, I think I will simply post a recipe here every now and then when I suffer from a lack of anything better to write, or when I want to share a special memory... or when I just want to share something delicious.

Or, at times, not so delicious.  Let me explain.

When I was growing up almost all of our food was home grown or home made.  I had few store-bought special treats, but those that were allowed were awesome.  

My favorites were Snack-Pack pudding (in the metal cans with peel-back metal lids),  Little Debbie Swiss Rolls, Totino's Party Pizza and the amazing Swanson t.v. dinners... the ones made of aluminum foil and had to be baked in the oven.  Salisbury steak, fried chicken and my all-time favorite, turkey and dressing...

Swanson t.v. dinners, or as I like to call them, "Love in a box."

My stomach is growling just thinking of it.  I loved those things.

But most of our grub was home made and, yes, it was delicious.  But like everything in life, there were exceptions.  Which brings me back to my harrowing horseradish tale of yesteryear.  

Our horseradish sauce was (you guessed it!) home made.  And it was, to use my mom's term, "stout."  (Which was sort of like calling the Mount Everest "a big hill").

We only made horseradish sauce once a year, always in the late summer.  One batch was enough to last us an entire year (by "us," I mean Mom and Dad, because I wouldn't touch it with a telephone pole).  

And for the record, I am certain I was "volunteered" to prepare it because neither Mom nor Dad wanted to do it.  I can about imagine their conversation: "Make the kid do it.  It'll put hair on his chest."  If that was true, I'd look like a damn gorilla right now.

I remember grinding the raw horseradish into a large bowl, the juices and the fumes powerful enough to cause chemical burns.  Then pouring vinegar in the mix added insult to injury.  It was inhumane.  A Hazmat suit should have been required while preparing it.  Actually, it probably would be mandatory today.

Mom would can the mixture in pint jars, although I'm not sure why, because it couldn't spoil; no bacteria known to science would survive its astonishing brawn.  Every few months when a new jar was opened, a special protocol was followed to prevent the house from vaporizing (you might think I'm kidding, but it is very telling that I was made to grind and mix the concoction outside).  

But my parents absolutely swore by the sauce.  They said it prevented sickness, killed viruses and promoted general good health.  I'm not sure what it prevented or promoted, but it definitely killed something.

Mixing and mashing those virulent ingredients, whilst sucking in tiny breaths of fresh air, all seemed so traumatic at the time.  I mean, I took me until my mid-30's to even try horseradish sauce.  

Yet in the end, I suppose making me do something I didn't want to do built character.  At the very least, it taught me discipline and the concept of doing things right the first time (because I sure as hell didn't want to do it twice!).

And as crazy as it sounds, I wish I could do it all over again one more time.

When I was a kid, this used to be part of our garden.  This was where we dug up the horseradish roots.  Many horseradish plants still grow here voluntarily, even though there hasn't been a garden for almost 20 years.  The plants are like a memory that refuses to fade and I've actually grown very fond of them.

I imagine myself sitting outside in the evening, grinding those roots, suffocating from the noxious fumes, while watching my dad tinker with the Farmall and Mom pull weeds in the garden.  On her way to the house, with a  armful of freshly dug potatoes and carrots, she would remind me I had to mow the lawn on Saturday, and she knew I couldn't argue because my vocal cords were paralyzed from the venomous vapors permeating my mucus membranes.

Mom was smart like that.

To go back one more time and spend a summer evening with the two of them, even one making horseradish sauce...  you know what?  There's nothing I wouldn't give.

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Here is the recipe, in all of its lethal glory, and in my mom's handwriting, from the original recipe card:

"Makes about 3 pts of good stout Horse Radish."  The understatement of the 20th century, probably.