I know what a horse is. I know what a radish is. But, what the heck is a horseradish? - Jinx 
It’s a plant. So called because horses supposedly like eating it. Kind of like catnip.
FTR I live in the Horseradish capital of the world, Collinsville IL
Collinsville…Horseradish Capital of the World
You might want to check out our Horseradish Festival…
International Horseradish Festival
tsfr
From Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages ,an amazing page of info about Armoracia rusticaus, including the name of the plant in many languages. Talk about German thorough research!
**Etymology
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 k?en, Sorbian kr?n, Russian khren [???], Ukrainian khrin [???] 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 [???].
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”.**
I don’t know that horses like eating it, it’s pretty intense to chew; I’d go with the above explaination. I LOVE eating it, as much as onions and garlic. For an intense wake-up in the morning, try toast with peanut butter and prepared horseradish. Yum! (Haven’t tried it with fresh grated, that would probably be too much)
I decided to make homemade horseradish once. I bought a big o’l root, peeled it, chopped it, and put it in a blender. After it was basically pureed, I opened the top an took a little sniff.
Don’t ever, ever do that.
I like dictionaries. They have lots of words. Even ones I don’t know!
Here’s another one:
must be time for passover.
Collinsville is also the home of the World’s Largest Catsup Bottle. Should it also be known as the Cocktail Sauce Capital of the World?
Horseradish is powerful stuff. I once found horseradish root being sold at a grocery store, so I bought one to make prepared horseradish sauce. I tried grating it with a box grater. The fumes were so irritating that I had to leave the room every few minutes. I finished the job by using goggles to protect my eyes and breathing through my mouth to protect my nose.
BTW, horseradish is one of the bitter herbs traditionally eaten at Seder (the Passover meal) to remind the participants of the bitterness of slavery. You may have noticed horseradish root being sold at your local grocery store or produce market recently. That’s because Passover began on April 12 this year, just a couple of days ago.