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Keeping true to his roots

Family traditions trump glitzy modernization in Michael Long's horseradish business.

Michael Long at his stand in Lancaster’s Central Market.
Michael Long at his stand in Lancaster’s Central Market.Read moreRICK NICHOLS / Staff

At his 6-foot-long stand (the shortest frontage permitted in Lancaster's old Central Market), Michael Long contemplates the future for his extraordinary horseradish - 48 hours old at the oldest if you buy it here, and potently pure. He wishes, in fact, that phobics who've had shelf-stable mockeries, or stale product, or adulterated examples could try his precious little jars.

His grated horseradish has the aspect of fresh snow, fixed in distilled vinegar and a little water, no salt, even, or sugar, or flavoring of any sort, $2.75 for 6 1/2 ounces; at its nasal-clearing finest for up to eight weeks. (Some major brands don't even get to the store by then.)

He is the fourth-generation Long about the business, a pedestal fan his only advertising; he switches it on at strategic moments, when he's grating another root - "I grate them, I don't grind them" - sending a sharp mist over the aisle. "The weeping fan," he calls it.

He carries a few spin-offs - a zingy barbecue sauce he has been working on, a tangy cocktail sauce he supplies to local seafood and grocery stores, a hot mustard, and what his wife, Cynthia, calls his "sneak-attack pickles," chilled, crisp, sweet spears from which the hit of horseradish does not emerge until you're a few chomps into them.

Regulars bring their empties back. Little girls drag their mothers over for his lemonade. Tourists flinch when Long stuffs another knobby root in the mouth of the grater - and the fan spreads the news.

It is not a business at a glance that has "high-end speciality food brand" written all over it, or "international potential" (although Balducci's, the New York-based gourmet food chain, does carry Long's in a private-label jar).

But a funny thing happened a year ago, even as Long, boyish at 57, was himself musing about incremental expansion. Say, a Web site maybe. Or Internet ordering. Or maybe he could get the guy who runs the Italian deli stall down the aisle to take a few cases to the Reading Terminal Market when he went to Philadelphia to pick up his cheese and olives.

Long's tech-savvy son, Andrew, 29, submitted the family business (established in 1901 by Long's German great-grandfather, then Lang) as the test case in a student contest run by the One Club, an advertising-industry group. It was chosen. The challenge? "Reposition Long's Horseradish as a high-end specialty brand."

Let us review for a moment. Michael Long spends Fridays at Central Market, grating his horseradish in an ancient-looking grater that has been retrofitted with a small motor; before that it was hand-cranked. Other than that things haven't changed, except, well, he no longer grates coconut.

So here's the factory: Long pulls select-grade, Mississippi Valley root as big as a dog's bone from the tub on the floor. Earlier in the week he has peeled it with a potato grater and cut the eyes out with a penknife in his Mountville, Pa., workshop. He puts it into the mouth of the grater. It fills a pull-drawer below. He empties the drawer into a lidded pot. He pours in the vinegar and then spoons the snowy root into the little jars.

In the words of the One Club's challenge, it produces a high-quality product but in a style that's "amateur in every way." (Isn't that it's charm?) "Everything feels lowbrow and too 'small town.' " (Well, it ain't Madison Avenue, and isn't that it's beauty?) How indeed do you ramp up small-town charm, owner-operated root-grating, 48-hour freshness, hand-spooned bottling?

The advertising students weren't shy. They created chef's jackets embroidered with the Long's logo and a spidery root. One offered a jingle: "Enjoy the potency of purity." Some showed how to track deliveries by smart phone.

Some wandered far afield. A flurry of YouTube spots got sexually graphic. Bottle designs got retro (and costly). Billboards were proposed. The winning Swedish team took the prize with a video spoof - perplexing Cynthia Long - that suggested Long's horseradish was unlike ordinary radish because it was hoof-made by real horses.

So in Booth H-10, open Tuesdays and Fridays, Michael Long remains a club of one for now, weighing how a man, on his own terms, might someday sell more root - without at the same time having to sell his soul.

Long's Horseradish

Lancaster Central Market
23 N. Market St.
Lancaster
717-872-9343

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