SUNDERLAND — The “zing” was level 10 this year.
It wasn’t an all-time high, not like that one year, when the zing-level-15 horseradish brought tears immediately, but it was up there.
That was the consensus among the 10 neighbors, family and friends who gathered at Debbie and Tom Zimnowski’s annual grinding of the horseradish roots Saturday.
“It’s a time to get the family together,” Tom Zimnowski said. “Why horseradish? We’re bored.”
They gather each year on Hepburn Road in Sunderland for the springtime tradition of peeling, cutting, grinding and blending the first batch of horseradish of the season, grown right in the backyard.
Then, in what Tom Zimnowski would refer to as “tasty torture,” they lather the horseradish onto a piece of kielbasa and flip it upside-down onto their tongues — the proper way to taste-test and rate the “zing” level. It’s all washed down with cold beer, of course.
“It’s great, especially in the springtime,” said Dave Sagan, who had just experienced the eye-watering, nasal-clearing qualities of the root condiment first-hand. “People are just trying to get out after the winter, get together.”
Tom Zimnowski said the tradition started at least a decade ago, when he saw several family members at a wake and funeral, talked about their interests — like cousin Richard Zimnowski’s perfection of sauerkraut making — and realized, “You never see people.”
“The one thing we use this for is it gets the neighbors together,” Tom Zimnowski said.
First, the horseradish is uprooted from Tom Zimnowski’s back yard. This year, after an unwelcome amount of moisture, many of the roots were rotten and unusable.
Then when the annual gathering starts, it’s peeled, chopped and passed through Richard Zimnowski’s grinder. The grinder was Richard Zimnowski’s mother’s, a 1930s grinder probably bought with S&H Green Stamps. It’s still going strong.
But, careful. A necessary piece of equipment during the grinding process is a bucket on the floor, under the grinder, to catch the juices.
The annual grinding of horseradish roots didn’t always feature a bucket, and there’s still a good two-square-foot rough patch on the garage floor, where the alkaline juices started to erode the concrete.
The ground roots are then put into a blender with ice water, ice cubes, and salt. None of the proportions are measured. It’s an art that yields different horseradish sauces with different zing levels each time.
“After you have one taste, your face blows off,” Richard Zimnowski said.
“Our tastebuds die after a while,” agreed his first cousin, Tom Zimnowski.
Reach David McLellan at dmclellan@recorder.com.