Chren so smotanou a jablkom

The story

Horseradish is one of the fixed flavors of a Slovak Easter. A TASR news agency report on Easter food customs lists it with eggs, cakes and young plants among the foods that mark the holiday across Slovakia, and ethnologist Katarína Popelková names beets with horseradish among the festive dishes of western Slovakia. A second TASR report, on the blessing of Easter food, notes that beets and horseradish went into the Easter basket mainly in Rusyn villages. The habit traveled with emigrants. An essay by Michael V. Simko, reprinted in a Cleveland State University library book on the city's Slovak communities, describes a boy sent to grate the horseradish outdoors to spare his eyes, and a mother who mixes it with grated beets and a dash of vinegar for the Easter ham and kolbasy. The version here is the softer household spread: freshly grated root with sour cream, a little sugar and salt, and grated apple, which the SITA news agency says many households add to soften the bite. On Easter Sunday, March 28, 2027, grate the root no more than a day ahead and serve the cream cold beside sliced ham, syrek and pečka.