The root of a family trade

The manufacture of horseradish products has come a short way since the day - 50, 60, 70 years ago - when housewives in Kensington left empty bottles out for the local grinder, and, far beyond the city, the original Kelchner, a Mennonite minister, scoured the raw root in rotating barrels he'd filled with the shards of oyster shells.

You can see just how short here in small-town Dublin along Route 313 between Quakertown and Doylestown, the world headquarters, you might say, of Kelchner's, the mightiest little horseradish (and cocktail sauce, and hot mustard) maker south of Gold's, the New York behemoth.

In come half-ton bales of gnarled root - from the horseradish fields south of Toronto and, famously, the Illinois side of the Mississippi, and in lesser amounts from near Bridgeton, N.J., Long Island, and a smattering of Amish farmers in Lancaster County who, of course, don't deliver.

There are plenty of tricks to the trade. But basically the root is then washed and peeled and chopped and ground and mixed with white vinegar and salt, which is very close to how Preston Kelchner first processed the stuff as a sideline back in 1938, selling it "prepared," the better to take the sting and tears out of home grinding.

The entire object, after all, is to simply preserve its basic horseradish-ness - that bracing shot to the sinuses that gives way to mustardy heat tinged, at the end, with a melting sweetness.

For everything, there is a season. And this is horseradish's, once again, dollops often required to cut the richness of Polish Easter kielbasa, and to complete the Seder plate for Passover, its hint of bitterness a remembrance of the bondage of the Jews in ancient Egypt.

So on the day I visit, Kelchner's is starting a mild run-up, though not with the battle-stations urgency that can precede Christmas when the regular staff of 22 swells to, well, sometimes as many as 30.

The operation is housed these days in a barn-red, metal building off Dublin's Main Street, behind a yellow bungalow near the local Dairy Queen and the handsome St. Luke's United Church of Christ.

And while it is still a family business - owner John Slaymaker's dad, Walter, bought it nearly 40 years ago - it is no longer a sideline. Out of this 4,000-foot space, fitted with a single, 40-gallon kettle grinder, emerge 100 cases (12 to a case) of horseradish an hour, enough capacity to serve 1,000 stores directly (including a good percentage of the Mid-Atlantic's fresh seafood counters), and many hundreds more (Acmes and SuperFreshes and Giants) through chain distributors.

A word about the cocktail sauce: Kelchner's has made it an easy wholesale buy. It now stocks and distributes everything else a fish counter could want - tins of Old Bay, cases of hot sauces, breading supplies, and crackers.

This is how a small-town player stays in the game, expands its reach. That, and freshness.

That, and loyal workers, several of whom have been with the company 30 years. And right-sized suppliers: Kelchner's buys its jars from Dutch Gold, the honey packer in Lancaster, which sells to Amish picklers and a network of small-time condiment makers.

Kelchner's was getting tight when it moved in 1991 from behind the Dublin hardware store. "Now we're busting at the seams, again," says Slaymaker, who traces his family to the early waves of Pennsylvania Dutch who settled near Gap. (As if to prove his bona fides, his wife, Mimi, tells me they had breakfast-for-dinner the night before - pancakes and fried scrapple.)

They are done scrubbing the roots in the big, metal tumbler (the successor to the old rotating barrels) by the time I check by. But it is typically at this point, when the root's cell structure is first disturbed, that it sends off its eye-watering scent - the calling card of a biting persona, chemically identical, apparently, to the pungent seed of black mustard.

What I witness are the next steps: the sorting of the scrubbed root into pails, the darker root saved for the seafood cocktail sauce that's a big share of Kelchner's summer business, the whiter ones for the prepared white horseradish.

The gnarled thinner roots are hand-chopped off the knobby center roots. They all end up in a 40-gallon grinder, mounted next to a powerful exhaust fan. This is about the state of the usual art. But there are trade secrets: The grinder, for instance, gives Kelchner's a coarser texture, the better to hold the heat and unleash its zip when it's chewed.

There are no bleaches used, just careful hand trimming. The red beet-infused horseradish, popular this time of year, is a touch sweeter - from the beet puree and cider vinegar, rather than the usual white.

There is one more secret, though, that I need to ask John Slaymaker, bearded and graying now at 49, a hobby beekeeper and frustrated horseradish farmer (the soil isn't loamy enough for a good crop in downtown Dublin).

How long can I keep a jar of the stuff in the door of my refrigerator?

Six months unopened, he tells me. Maybe two months opened: After that the fire has pretty much gone out.

He has his own solution: Use up the horseradish - in cranberry relish and mashed potatoes, in the applesauce for pork roast and spinach salad dresssing.

The recipes are on the Web site.

He'll make more.

161 S. Main St.

Dublin, Pa.

1-800-424-1952

www.kelchnershorseradish.com

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For an inside look at Kelchner's, go to http://go.philly.com/ horseradish.EndText