My Mother’s Horseradish Sauce

Horseradish grows wild all over Alsace, and in the fall we would go out picking it. My grandfather would sit listening to his 1950s radio, grating fifteen or twenty roots, crying the whole time from the fumes. He would sprinkle a little lemon juice or vinegar over the gratings to keep the horseradish very white.

This is one of my favorite sauces, my mother’s recipe, an easy, all-purpose, piquant, creamy sauce for dumplings, for liver quenelles (see Vea