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Comment by missosoup | Hacker News Reader

There's not a lot of difference between real and fake wasabi. One is horseradish and the other is a close relative of horseradish.

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> There's not a lot of difference […] One is horseradish and the other is a close relative of horseradish.

Close relatives of the horseradish include woad (the ancient indigo source), turnips, rapeseed, cabbages, weeds (thale cress) and flowery shrubs & al. "Close relative" is not an indication of "not a lot of difference". You might as well say that mustard (also a close relative) is no different from wasabi.

It's the same chemical allyl isothiocyanate producing the flavor one way or the other. Horseradish isn't faking the flavor.

Have you tasted them? Most people wouldn't notice the difference if you swapped their regular fake wasabi for the real thing. The main difference is the colour, hence the fake stuff being dyed green.

They definitely taste different if wasabi is fresh chopped.

You're missing my point, which is that "close relative" says literally nothing about the effects given how varied "close relatives" of the horseradish are.

You may well be right that there is no big difference between wasabi and horseradish, but them being "close relative" is not an actual argument for that unless they're much closer relative than just being in the same taxonomic family.

You're sort of beating a strawman to death. I just said close relative without specifying how close or what kind of relationship. You picked that to mean "same taxonomic family' and having a go at that being a bad choice of qualification. Okay mate, but you picked it. Being pedantic for no productive reason at all backfires. Often.

> You're sort of beating a strawman to death. I just said close relative without specifying how close. And you picked that to mean "same taxonomic family'

I didn't pick anything, I just looked up what the qualifier you picked meant. They're not the same species, they're not the same genus, they're the same taxonomic family, which also includes all the stuff I listed in my original comment.

You said:

>There's not a lot of difference between real and fake wasabi. One is horseradish and the other is a close relative of horseradish.

There was no strawman. Being a close relative does not imply "not a lot of difference."

Have you tried a teaspoon of Dijon?

But can be a lot of difference on how is cultured and its origin.

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