2WIF1410HD Huntsinger Farms Horse Radish Prime Rib Transcript

- Luke: This week on Wisconsin Foodie...
[upbeat music]

Horseradish is one of those ingredients that's been a part of my life since I was a kid.

- Here at Huntsinger Farms, we are the world's largest grower and processor of horseradish.

- Whoa. It's all coming from right here. What do you think we're gonna check out today?

- So, yeah, actually, we're gonna start out here in the horseradish field.

- This is a story that I don't think most people recognize as being a really wonderful Wisconsin story.

- I feel so fortunate to be a fourth-generation horseradish farmer and have the opportunity to continue on the family tradition and legacy. I think you'll notice a little more of the heat on this one.

- Yep. Ooh, ooh. It's so good. I'd like to say this is the first time I've ever cried on camera, but I don't think so, man.

- King cut prime rib, specifically one that has a local storyline, roasted to perfection. You're looking for a way to spice up your life. This guy has the answers right here. 

Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters:

§ §

- The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie, and remind you that, in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese.
[people cheer]

Just look for our badge. It's on everything we make.

- Did you know Organic Valley protects over 400,000 acres of organic farmland? So, are we an organic food cooperative that protects land or land conservationists who make delicious food? Yes, yes, we are. Organic Valley.
[lively banjo music]

- Announcer: Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993. Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer's made.

- Wisconsin's great outdoors has something for everyone. Come for the adventure, stay for the memories. Go wild in Wisconsin! To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

- Twenty-minute commutes, weekends on the lake, warm welcomes, and exciting career opportunities, not to mention all the great food. There's a lot to look forward to in Wisconsin. Learn more at InWisconsin.com.

- With additional support coming from The Conscious Carnivore. From local animal sourcing to onsite, high-quality butchering and packaging, The Conscious Carnivore can ensure organically raised, grass-fed, and healthy meats through its small group of local farmers. The Conscious Carnivore. Know your farmer; love your butcher.

- Luke: Additional support from the following underwriters...
[contemplative music]

Also, with the support of Friends of PBS Wisconsin.
[upbeat, lively music]

[butcher paper rustles]

We are a collection of the finest farmers, food producers, and chefs on the planet. We are a merging of cultures and ideas shaped by this land.
[meat sizzles]

We are a gathering of the waters, and together, we shape a new identity to carry us into the future.
[glasses clink]

[sharpening knife]

We are storytellers. We are Wisconsin Foodie.
[gentle music]

Today, we're on the way to Huntsinger Farms, located just outside of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Now Huntsinger is the parent company for Silver Spring Foods, and together, they are the largest producer of horseradish in the world. 

That's right. Another industry leader coming from Wisconsin's food sector. 

And I'm really, really excited to walk through this place because I've never actually seen how horseradish is farmed, processed, and produced. 

And because it was an ingredient that was always on our table growing up, I guess, I personally, I've never really given a lot of thought to where that horse ranch comes from and the people that bring it from the ground to the plate.

- So, my name is Eric Rygg. I am the president of Huntsinger Farms and Silver Spring Foods. We're actually here at the farmhouse. My great-grandfather started our company in 1929, and he bought this property in 1934. And this is the house actually my mom grew up in. So, our claim to fame here at Huntsinger Farms is we are the world's largest grower and processor of horseradish. So Ellis Huntsinger was my great-grandfather. He started this company in 1929. Before he started farming again, he was a door-to-door lightning rod salesman in the area. And I think he just kind of ran outta customers.

There's not a lot of repeat customers in that field. So he ended up going back to farming, which is what his family did to kind of fall back on his roots to support his family.

And he planted horseradish here. What he discovered is, the regular crops were great at the farmer's market. After you harvest, you sell 'em, and you're good to go.

But what about for the winter months? Horseradish grew really good here and horseradish really excels in this general geography. We have kind of the right balance of the summer months and the sun that we need.

And then, it likes a cold winter frost that gets all of those nutrients going from the leaves and builds these big bulky roots. We like to say it kind of bulks up for the winter. 

He was able to store the horseradish that he harvested in cold storage all winter long, grind it in his basement. We actually ground the horseradish here. We started in the basement and distributed it out, keeping it fresh. And we like to say that horseradish became the real lightning rod. I feel so fortunate to be a fourth-generation horseradish farmer and have the opportunity to continue on the family tradition and legacy. 

Silver Spring Foods is really the manufacturing arm now. That's where there's a divide, an agricultural divide, and a food manufacturing divide. Where Huntsinger Farm's purpose now is to grow the highest quality horseradish at the lowest possible cost and supply all of Silver Spring's horseradish needs. Hi, good morning. So right now, we're growing 70% of what Silver Spring is grinding. So, a hundred percent of what we grow goes to the factory and gets ground and bottled. 

So we're gonna be grinding a lot. You can see all the totes lined up and ready to go. So this is a thousand pounds of horseradish. So overall production, we're doing about a hundred million pounds of product a year through our plants. We are processing about eight- to nine- million pounds of horseradish a year. 

So this is actually, you've taken you all the dirt and everything out of it. So that's raw horseradish, and the horseradish, again, you grind up and mix with other ingredients. So, the horseradish, it gets conveyered in here from the cooler. 

From here, it gets ground up, and mixed with vinegar, salt, and water. Those are the three ingredients that make prepared horseradish.

I'll say that's a fresh horseradish today. Man, it's potent. I love horseradish so much, it's making me cry. So we've ground the product, we're blending it, and then from the holding tank, we're gonna be able to transfer it right out to the filling line, get it right in the glass jar, and bring it out to market. 

So, if my great-grandfather, Ellis Huntsinger, were here today, I think he would be blown away by the scale of what we're doing. All the different varieties of horseradish that we've come out with. I think he would be blown away by that. But that's still, we've carried on that high-quality and that flavor profile that he developed.
[gentle music]

- How's it going today?

- Luke: Good morning, how are you?

- Good. I'm Kyle.

- Luke: I've never been to a commercial horseradish operation before.

- Kyle Bechel: Sure.

- And Huntsinger Farm is kind of like the be-all, end-all for Wisconsin horseradish production. You guys do it all. What do you think we're gonna check out today?

- Kyle: So yeah, actually, we're gonna start out here in the horseradish field. We've got one just outside the building here. And then we're gonna move down to the facility where we actually store the horseradish and wash it. And then from there, we're gonna go to the production facility where we actually make all the good stuff.

- Yeah, I can't wait to kind of dig into this one. I love horseradish; it's one of my favorite condiments.

- Me, too. It's good stuff.

- I think there's more applications for it than most people give it credit for. Walk me through a little bit of the life cycle of these plants that we're looking at here.

- Sure. So, the ideal amount of time for the horseradish plant or root to be in the ground is 18 to 24 months. That's kind of what we shoot for. So this field here in particular, by the time we get to harvesting, it's probably gonna be in the ground for about 24 months. This here is 12 months old. We actually planted this field here about a year ago.

- Do you have to stage it at different times so you get harvest throughout the year, or is it pretty much like you plant it, you get in there for 24 months, and then it all comes out, and you start over again?

- Yeah, so we kind of stagger how we plant things. So this field here, in particular, is 260 acres. So, this is the majority of what we would've planted last fall. So that's why we plant every spring and fall. We try to stagger it so that we have that 300 acres or so to harvest every spring and every fall. We try to stagger it so that we always have mature two-year-old horseradish to harvest every season.

- So we see all this beautiful foliage up on top. What's going on down below?

- Kyle: Let's check it out.

- Luke: Cool. This is really sandy soil.

- We do grow horseradish in any soil type. We have pretty much all soil types on the farm. The sandy soil makes it a little bit easier for harvest just 'cause the soil doesn't collect or stick to the roots.

- Sure. Does it affect the flavor at all?

- Kyle: A little bit. It seems like the sandy soil doesn't have quite as much potency.

- Luke: Sure. There she be.

- There it is. So the way that the horseradish works is, when it starts to cool off like it is now, these roots will actually; they'll cannibalize the leaves, and they'll take some of the nutrients from the leaves and pack 'em into the root. In the next three weeks or a month, this root will probably double in size.

- Luke: Wow.

- So this here is the actual piece that we planted to produce this horseradish root. We call this a set root. So, if you imagine that this piece here and this piece here will eventually, by the time we harvest, be four times the diameter, that they are roughly three-quarters of an inch in diameter. We'll actually harvest these pieces off the root as we're sorting them and processing them. And then we'll actually plant those pieces back like this one was, and then that's how we keep the process going.

- Luke: Sure. It's beautiful on the inside.
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- Kyle: Little bit of dirt on there, but that's good. It won't hurt you.

- Luke: No, it won't hurt me.

- That's a really good flavor for a first-year horseradish.

- Okay, hold on. I gotta do the horseradish thing where it's in my nose.

- Kyle: Let's go.

- Do you ever get used to that?

- I chew enough of it. I get used to it.

- Do you? Okay, cool.

- It's good stuff. This is pretty hot. It's a pretty hot root. Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Kyle: It's good stuff.

- I'd like to say this is the first time I've ever cried on camera, but I don't think so, man. So when we've harvested it here, where does it go next?

- So, from here, it'll go down to our processing facility. So this is what we call the underground building. This is where we store and sort all of our horseradish coming out of the field.

- Luke: This is awfully tall for being underground.

- Yeah, yeah. You'll see why we call it the underground.

- Okay.

- So this area here is where we do our final sort of the horseradish. It comes out of the washers and across this belt. We do a final sort, make sure there's no trash that got through the initial sorting process. And then, it'll go across a magnet and up that auger right there, and into the containers that we use to transport it to Silver Springs.

- Luke: So Silver Springs, this is still Huntsinger Farms?

- Kyle: This is Huntsinger Farms, yeah.

- Luke: And the minute it goes upstairs, then it goes to Silver Springs.

- Kyle: Correct.

- So, where is the horseradish now?

- Well, let's go look.

- Okay. Whoa.

- So this is a cooler where we store the horseradish. We actually have two coolers. This one will hold about two and a half million pounds, and the one on the other side of the wall holds about a million and a half pounds. 

So, you can kind of see, these are two-year-old roots. This is what we're looking for. So if you compare this to the one that we dug up in the field, another year's growth really makes a pretty good difference on 'em.

- Yeah, that's significant. So all day, 4 million pounds coming in, is that annually for the harvest or?

- Kyle: That's twice a year.

- Luke: Twice a year. Kyle: Yeah.

- Luke: It's no wonder we're the largest exporter of horseradish in the United States. I mean, it's all coming from right here. 

Everything in here gives the essence of horseradish. My mouth is salivating for it already. I just really appreciate you walking us through.

- Kyle: You bet. It's good stuff.

- Luke: Yeah.

- Appreciate you coming out, and good to meet you.

- Luke: Hey, good to meet you too, sir. Thanks a lot.
[gentle music]

Eric, this experience has been amazing so far. We got to walk through the fields with Kyle. I got to see some of the storage and the handling of the horseradish. But for me the home run is always the ability to taste and try and understand where the passion, the pride, the integrity of the product comes through on the palette. Without further ado, because I am excited, what is the first condiment that I'll be tasting?

- So, we have a range of different condiments here, all using different levels of our horseradish that we grow here at Huntsinger Farms, Silver Spring. First one is a stone ground mustard. It's one of our newer mustards, and it's a nice blend of our whole grain, our deli, and our Beer'n Brat, which is a more aggressive heat. So I'd like you to start there.

- Luke: Okay.

- Eric: As a way to get in the middle of our heat range.
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- I like the consistency, first and foremost. It's well-balanced. You get a little bit of acidity, you get a little bit of sweetness, a touch of bitter at the very beginning, but then it kind of mellows out. That would rock a ham sandwich.

- Yeah. I think this is one of our most versatile mustards. You can put it on sandwiches for sure, but I think it would also have a great application in cooking. Use it as a coating for salmon or pork. But again, just right as a condiment on a hot dog or a sandwich.

- Luke: The next up.

- Okay, so this one is a level up, actually quite a few levels up, and it's our best-seller, it's called Beer'n Brat. And it's made with our fresh horseradish that you saw today that we grow here on the farm. And then we do mill our own mustard seeds.
[gentle music]

I think you'll notice a little more of a heat on this one.

- Yep. Ooh, ooh. It got me right in the back. You get a little bit of the sweetness, you get a little bit of the acidity, but then that horseradish kick comes in. So next, this is like the innovative one, right?

- Yeah. So, this, we're shifting gears a little bit. So, these two were mustard-based. Now, this is our cranberry horseradish. Horseradish again, we grew here. The cranberries are also from Wisconsin. Wisconsin is a big producer of cranberries and this one was invented at our Thanksgiving dinner table with the family when fresh cranberry sauce is co-mingled with our fresh horseradish. The two came together. We thought this was so delicious, so delicious on poultry and cheese, that we wanted to bring it to market. So it's kind of our beginner horseradish. It's lower on the heat scale, but a great way to get introduced to the category.

- That's just as delicious as I've ever had it on Thanksgiving day, that sugar and that horseradish punch.

- We have a heat index for horseradish. And so we just call it the zing factor.

- The zing factor. Okay.

- This is a level one.

- This is a level one zing?

- A level one zing.

- I was gonna give it a level three, and I'm gonna try that second bite 'cause it's that good.

- Alright, so moving on here. This is another horseradish product. This is what we call our sassy horseradish sauce. The intention here is really for like a roast beef sandwich and ready to just squirt right on something and go.

- I love the creaminess in there. I love the inherent sweetness. I love how that sassy base is really, really ubiquitous, and you can just tell it's a great carrying mechanism for that horseradish sass. Yeah.

- So, our last product is our flagship. It's just our prepared horseradish, no frills. This is the root essentially that you saw on the field today. You've gone through the whole process, ground, and bottled with vinegar and salt. That's it. Zing factor. This is a zing factor of three.

- Luke: Okay. What's the highest zing factor you've got going?

- Eric: Five.

- Five. Okay, okay. Whoa.
[Luke and Eric chuckling]

It's so good, it's so good. But man, oh, man, it gets you! That's three on the zing factor.

- That's three on the zing factor.

- Oh, this is delicious. The vinegar balance, the salt balance, the horseradish itself. I mean, it all kind of works together and creates that classic familiarity that most of us are so accustomed to. I have a tear coming down my cheek right now.

- We bring a tear to your eye just thinking about it.

- But that is delicious. This is a story that I don't think most people recognize as being a really wonderful Wisconsin story, and the way that the care, and the culture of the corporation moves throughout the entire stratosphere of this place. 

It's no wonder that you're the industry leaders and producing world-class horseradish and mustard products. 

And on that note, I got one more just in case anyone at home was feeling moved about the tear to the eye. Wow. You're looking for a way to spice up your life. This guy has the answers right here. Nice work.

- Thank you.
[gentle music]

- After my experience at Huntsinger Farms and Silver Spring Foods, I got to thinking, horseradish is one of those ingredients that's been a part of my life since I was a kid. It's been on the table for almost every single special occasion that we've shared in my family. 

And I thought today I would make a preparation that really, really cements my love of food, and of that ingredient in multiple different ways, quite honestly. So today, I stopped at my favorite local butcher, and I asked them for a specific cut, the standing USDA prime rib roast. 

Now, this rib roast has been dry aged, and we can see that by the different colors on the exterior. But what I'd like to do today is kind of create a millage of Wisconsin specialty ingredients. 

So what I would like to do is take and puree a little bit of this Silver Spring horseradish, and then add in another specialty Wisconsin crop, this organic black garlic.
[gentle music]

Last but certainly not least, we are going to add a little bit of sunflower oil. Sunflower oil and seed oils are another specialty Wisconsin product. And we add this in just to give it a nice smearable base. I'm gonna add the top, and we're gonna pulse.
[blender whirring]

[gentle music]

Yes. Mm... That smells delicious. That is so rich. 

Obviously, you get the zing factor of the horseradish. Again, it goes straight to my sinuses. But it's cooled and tempered with the essence of that black garlic, which I'm telling you is almost more fruity than it is garlic. You get a little bit of that umami push-pull on your palate, but it's so rich and luxurious. 

I wanna take and season the outside of this prime rib liberally. I always think when I am seasoning a piece of meat in this size, and we're actually just applying the seasoning to the outside, you want that salt and black pepper to permeate into the center of that meat. So it's really important to get a nice, flavorful crust. And this is what we want this to look like. 

And now it's time to paste it up. This is like the jam for the holidays. I can't tell you how much joy eating prime rib, and specifically, one that has like a local storyline, brings to my table and my family's table. It truly is the essence of the holidays in Wisconsin.

And when you can incorporate broader storylines of all these other specialty ingredients, it's literally mind-blowing for the diners. So today, what we'll do with this prime rib is I'm gonna take it and put it in a pan that allows me to catch the juices that are gonna actually work out of this as it renders down that fat.

And I'm gonna place it right into the pizza oven. Now that dome oven operates at a very high temperature, so it will seal all these flavors inside. And once I see that that crust has formed approximately 20 to 30 minutes, then I'll remove it from that heat, and I'm gonna transfer it to a lower oven. 

And that way all those juices that are sealed inside can kind of work together and homogenize to create that uniform temperature that's so ubiquitous with prime rib.
[gentle music]

I love this. Being able to take all these locally produced ingredients, and cook them over a wood fire, and serving it to my friends and family is the dream.
[gentle music]

So, right now, this oven is at 325 degrees. It'll allow all that hemoglobin and myoglobin located inside that roast to get nice with each other and redistribute those flavors of Wisconsin all the way through that. 

The sweetness in the sugar in that fermented garlic really, really helps seal that moisture in. And when I give it a squeeze, you can tell all that juice is still inside that meat, which is perfect.

In order to break this thing up, like I said, this is a standing rib roast. We have two rib bones in the back. I want to take my knife and come right through the middle to get that big king cut of prime rib roasted to perfection.

This beautiful rosy hue is the result of taking this temperature to 125 degrees and then allowing it to rest. Once I slice it, that air takes with the myoglobin inside and colors it this nice deep red-pink hue, which is delicious, and in my book, the best way to eat a prime rib.

King cut prime rib: it doesn't get too much better than this. The only thing I can think of to really kick this up a little bit is a little bit more horseradish. That's right. I'm telling you, I am in love with horseradish.
[gentle music]

That is out of this world. Oh, my goodness. And all of these ingredients, from the black garlic to the horseradish... These specialty ingredients are cementing the fact that Wisconsin is nowhere near culinary flyover country.
[gentle music]

Find yourself a man who looks at you the way Eric looks at horseradish. Can't feel my face.

- It's nice that it's a regenerative-- I can't even, I'll give up on it.

- It's actually a top-secret missile silo. The roof opens up, and yeah. Yeah, but we can't talk about that. I shouldn't even be talking about that.
[upbeat music]

You gonna make it?

- I'm good.

- No. Okay, good.

- Kyle: That's really good root.

- That is good root. You say that a lot when you're out here, "Like, that's good root."

- Yeah.

- Yeah. The Bob Ross of the food world. Exactly. Just put a happy little spoon here. There are no accidents. I can just feel the zing factor moving on up. Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters:

§ §

- The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie, and remind you that, in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese.
[people cheer]

Just look for our badge. It's on everything we make.

- Did you know Organic Valley protects over 400,000 acres of organic farmland? So, are we an organic food cooperative that protects land or land conservationists who make delicious food? Yes, yes, we are. Organic Valley.
[lively banjo music]

- Announcer: Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993. Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer's made.

- Wisconsin's great outdoors has something for everyone. Come for the adventure, stay for the memories. Go wild in Wisconsin! To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

- Twenty-minute commutes, weekends on the lake, warm welcomes, and exciting career opportunities, not to mention all the great food. There's a lot to look forward to in Wisconsin. Learn more at InWisconsin.com.

- With additional support coming from The Conscious Carnivore. From local animal sourcing to onsite, high-quality butchering and packaging, The Conscious Carnivore can ensure organically raised, grass-fed, and healthy meats through its small group of local farmers. The Conscious Carnivore. Know your farmer; love your butcher.

- Luke: Additional support from the following underwriters...
[contemplative music]

Also, with the support of Friends of PBS Wisconsin. 

Are you hungry for more? Then go to our YouTube channel and subscribe and be in the loop every time we release new content, behind-the-scenes footage, and new episodes that you can preview before anyone else. Check us out.