Intact horseradish root does not exhibit much aroma, but on cutting,
shredding and especially grating, a pungent and lachrymatory, very strong
odour is released. This odour is, however, not stable but vanishes after some
ten or twenty minutes.
Japanese horseradish, also called wasabi, is nearly indistinguishable from horseradish in
taste, but a little bit stronger. Since it is never used in
sour sauces, it
cannot be substituted by canned horseradish, but possibly by fresh one.
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Horseradish flower
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Horseradish root contains approx. 0.6% of glucosinolates; the most abundant
of these are sinigrin (0.2%) and gluconasturtiin (0.1%). As soon
as intact cells are damaged, these isothiocyanates are enzymatically hydrolyzed to
yield allyl isothiocyanate and 2-phenylethyl isothiocyanate, respectively.
See black mustard for biochemical details.
Further glucosinolates in horseradish are glucobrassicanapin and
the indol-derived glucobrassicin (plus some closely related compounds like
4-methoxy glucobrassicin, 4-hydroxy glucobrassicin). On hydrolysis,
glucobrassicanapin yields 4-pentenyl isothiocyanate; yet the
glucobrassicines have no corresponding stable isothiocyanates.
Instead, they hydrolyze to 3-hydroxyindole derivatives and free
isothiocyanate ions.
Among the non-volatile constituents, one should mention flavone
glycosides (quercetine, kaempferol) and particularly ascorbic acid,
which is contained to 06% in horseradish root.
German has two different words for horseradish: Meerrettich
is preferred in the North, while Southern Germans and Austrians usually
call the spice Kren.
Meerrettich literally means “more radish” or
“greater radish”, indicating the greater size (or the stronger aroma) of
horseradish compared to garden radish (Raphanus sativus). The
similarity of the first element of this name to German Meer
“sea” is purely coincidental. A similar motivation is also found in
French: The French name raifort is probably formed from
radis fort “strong radish”.
The Southern German term Kren is a loan from a
Slavonic tongue, where cognates of Kren are widespread (Czech
křen, Sorbian krěn, Russian
khren [хрен],
Ukrainian khrin [хрін]
and Polish chrzan) and ultimately of unknown origin.
Some other non-Slavonic European languages have also borrowed that name,
e.g., French cran, Italian cren,
Romanian hrean and Greek chreno [χρένο].
The English name horseradish is allegedly derived by misinterpretation
of the German Meerrettich as mare radish (“mare”
being the English term for a female horse, for those of other mother-tongues).
On the other side, several English plant names contain an element horse
to denote “large” or “strong”; if one adopted the theory that
horseradish is of the same kind, the name would actually parallel
German Meerrettich.
The word radish (or German Rettich, or French
radis) itself derives from Latin radix
“root”. At the basis lies an Indo-European root WRAD (WRD)
“branch, root”. The common element of plant names, -wort, has the
same origin; see mugwort for more.
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Horseradish plant with flowers
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The Northern Germanic names of horseradish (e.g., Danish
peberrod, Icelandic piparrót and
Swedish pepparrot) mean “pepperroot”, being composed
of the name of black pepper and an element
cognate to English root, which is itself related to the former mentioned Latin radix. Finnish piparjuuri
has the same meaning (juuri “root”). Note that in
Modern Greek, a comparable name “pepper root” is used not for
horseradish but for ginger.
See long pepper for the etymology of
“pepper”.
In Japanese, the horseradish bears names comparing it with the indigenous and
popular spice wasabi:
seiyō-wasabi [西洋わさび, セイヨウワサビ] “Western wasabi” and
wasabi-daikon [わさびだいこん, ワサビダイコン] “radish-wasabi”.
The similarity between the two spices is also emphasized by the many names
of wasabi in Western languages that plainly signify “Japanese horseradish”
The origin of the botanical genus name Armoracia, which has
been in use by European botanists for horseradish since the Middle Age, is dark;
connections to the Celtic tribe of Armoricans have sometimes be claimed, but it
is not easy to find a historic connection. The old genus name Cochlearia (scurvygrass) derives from the Classical Latin cochleare “spoon”, which has survived in medical terminology
to this day. The reference seems to point at the leaves of some scurvygrass
species, which are supposed to look similar to the special type of spoons used
to administer medicines. The word is closely related to Latin
cochlea “snail's shell” suggesting that the Romans used
shells as spoons. Cf. also Old Greek
kochlias [κοχλίας] “snail”.
The botanical species name rusticanus “rural”,
belonging to rus “country-side”, probably refers
to the distribution of horseradish. The obsolete species name
lapathifolius “sorrel-leaved” hints at the similar
leaf shapes of horseradish and some large-leaved sorrel variants
(e.g., Rumex patientia), which were known in Old Greek
as lapathos [λάπαθος].
