Victor Sack wrote:
> Melba's Jammin' > wrote:
>

>
>>(And I'd shoot myself before I'd ever mix beets with horseradish. Not a
>>matter of gilding the lily but one of not desecrating something good.)
>
>
> You don't desecrate beets by mixing them with horseradish - you create
> something much treasured by, among other people, your ancestral Slovaks
> and Rusins.
>

Barbara, Bubba is right. (

Prepared horseradish in small bottles or jars comes both in white and
red. Can you guess what is added to the horseradish, in order to
produce the red color? I keep both in the refrigerator, to go with
Gefilte Fish.

When we first came here and lived in The Bronx, every Friday there
were Horseradish Grinders to be found in nearly every neighborhood.
My mother would frequently buy some, mostly to accompany the boiled
beef or boiled chicken she made and at times I would go with her when
she shopped for this condiment. The grinder would ask how much she
wanted and she would carefully pick a small root from the pile on the
counter. The price would be ten cents, only eight if you brought your
own jar, which we always did. When the horseradish was ground and the
vinegar or whatever else was mixed in, the man would ask whether she
wanted some grated beets and beet juice added, too. My mother would
decline politely, but would always tease the man about being Czech, as
this was were the addition of beets was traditional.

She did love beets, though, making Beet Borscht or buying Beet Salad,
the best, she claimed, being made by Horn & Hardard.

Bubba, you would have liked Erich. He liked beets even more than my
mother did, but he liked the salad made with grated beets. He liked
the Borscht hot, with potatoes but not with sour cream.