Thursday, December 22, 2005

Hrean man

Lately, I have been eating a lot of horseradish. I have decided that it (horseradish) is one of the finest and most underrated of vegetables. That, of course, is assuming that it is a vegetable. The Romanian word from horseradish is hrean and the Hungarian word is torma.

I have started eating it with everything. The other day, for example, I had a horseradish sandwich. It was gorgeous. And here I am not referring to horseradish sauce, or horseradish mixed with mayonnaise, but genuine strong, sinus-clearing, head-expanding, wasabi-esque horseradish. I'm thinking of writing a horseradish cookbook. This will be a triumph of marketing as it will basically just be lots of traditional recipes with horseradish added. I might even make it trilingual so it would feature, for example, fish 'n chips 'n horseradish, as well as tormás rakott krumpli, and of course mămăligă cu brânză şi smântână şi hrean. It would go down a storm in the lovers of strong tastes community of the Hungarian-Romanian-English speaking world.

Yesterday I dropped and broke a whole jar of it, which caused me much grief. I half expected the carpet to be eaten away this morning.

Sorry about the title, by the way, I couldn't help myself.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I share you enthusiasm for horseradish. They say it's really healthy. I usually prefere it with mayonnaise though. When you grate it, does bring out tears from your eyes.
Small price to pay for something that delicious ...

AlieMalie said...

You can have all my horseradish - I cannot stand the stuff.

Good luck with the baby - at least you have a head's up with regards to knowing she's going to be exceptionally stubborn. hehe.

:)
AlieMalie

Anonymous said...

Hey, you can change your last name to "Hrean", it already starts with an H.

Horia