GINGER
Ginger black or ginger white
Will furnish warmth in coldest night.
Without ginger how many would miss
A ginger cookie for little Sis.
GINGER (_officinale_ (_Roscoe_) _amomum zingiber, national order
zingiberaceoe Linn., monandria monogynia_).
French, _Gingembre_; German, _Ingwer_; Latin, _Zingiber_; Italian,
_Zenzevero_; Spanish, _Gengibre_; Portuguese, _Gengiuare_.
As a rule, spices grow above ground, but ginger is an exception, it
being the roots or rhizomes of Zingiber. The root is herbaceous and
creeping, tuberous, and of a somewhat flattened roundish form, marked
with rings.
It is difficult to fix the original habits of the ginger plant, and it
appears to be an unsettled question as to its native country, whether it
be Asia or Brazil, but in its wild state it would suggest Asia. Its
history dates back to a very early period.
Vincent’s “Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients” speaks of the
imports of it from the Red Sea into Alexandria in the second century. It
has been known in India from a very remote period, the Greek and Latin
names for ginger being derived from the Sanskrit. The Greek name for
ginger is conceded to have been taken from its Persian application.
Ginger is indigenous to China, and many leading authorities aver that it
derives its name ginger in China, where it formerly grew abundantly, and
that the plant was first called gingi at that place. It was common in
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and was next in value to pepper,
which was most common of all spices.
It was thought by the Greeks and Romans to have been a product of
Southern Arabia and was received by them by way of the Red Sea. Pliny
describes it as coming from Arabia. The Romans fixed a duty on ginger,
which is mentioned among other Indian spices, and ginger is mentioned in
the lists of dutiable goods of the Middle Ages, showing that it
constituted an important item of commerce between Europe and the East.
This duty was levied in Paris in 1296; Barcelona, 1221; Marseilles,
1228. Ginger appears to have been well known in England before the
Norman conquest, since it is often referred to in the Anglo-Saxon books
of the eleventh century.
Marco Polo appears to have seen the ginger plant, both in India and
China, about 1280, and some of the missionary friars who visited India
about 1292 give a description of the plant and refer to it as being dug
up and transplanted. The Venetian merchants in the early part of the
fifteenth century describe the plant as seen by them in India, and,
though the Venetians received ginger by way of Egypt, some of the
superior kinds were taken from India overland via Afghanistan, Persia,
and Turkey, and the Black Sea, then through the Dardanelles to the
Mediterranean and to the European market. Francis de Mendoza is said to
have first introduced it into America in 1547, bringing it from the East
Indies.
There is good proof of its having been shipped for commercial purposes
from San Domingo in 1585, and as early as 1547 considerable quantities
were sent from the West Indies to Spain.
The plant endures a wide range of climate. It may be grown at the sea
level or in high mountain regions, providing the rainfall be abundant or
irrigation be adapted. It is found cultivated from the Himalaya
Mountains, 5,000 feet above sea level, to Cape Comorin.
It is now found in Southeastern Asia, in some of the islands of the
Malayan Archipelago, on the west coast of Africa, in South America, and
the West Indies, and, in fact, almost all warm countries, including
China and Japan, which are large exporters of ginger. The city of
Calcutta (City of Palaces), from two words, Kali-ghatta, signifying the
landing place of the Goddess Kali, in Bengal India, exports more than
any other city in the world. The finest white ginger, which is most in
demand, comes from Jamaica. The acreage is not large, amounting to only
350 acres in 1891; it probably does not now much exceed 400 acres, but
improved methods of cultivation have increased the average yield per
acre to a large amount. Ginger is found in the following districts of
India: Mahur, Massa, Patra, Darra, Kothi, Kotahi, Bagal, and Jayal. It
is found throughout the Kwang-tung province, China. The district of
Nan-hai, which belongs to the city of Canton, produces a greater
quantity and better quality than any other of the neighboring districts.
The independent tribes of the Miso-tsu, in the mountains of the
northwestern border of the same province, produce much ginger, as does
also Cochin China, from which the famous Cochin ginger derives its name.
In the district of Hsin-hsing, about thirty miles south of the city of
Chao-Ching, on the West River, three-tenths of the flatland and
seven-tenths of the cultivated soil in the hills are planted with
ginger. A distinction is made between flatland ginger (in Canton dialect
ten-keung) which is generally soft and tender, and mountain ginger (shan
keung) which is brittle and pungent.
Three kinds of ginger were known among the merchants of Italy about the
middle of the fourteenth century.
The first was belledi or baladi (an Arabic name), which, as applied to
ginger, would signify “country” or “wild,” and denotes common ginger.
Second: Calombina, which refers to Calumbum, Kolam or Quilon, a port in
Travancore, frequently mentioned in the Middle Ages.
Third: Micchino, a name which denoted that the spice had been brought
from or by way of Mecca.
[Illustration: BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF COCHIN]
[Illustration: CLEAN AND AIRY CHOWRINGHEE ROAD (Esplanade at Left)
LOOKING NORTH OVER CALCUTTA, INDIA
Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N. Y.]
It is inferred from the examination of specimens of preserved ginger
that are sent abroad from China that the Chinese have a species unknown
in other countries. This inference is in harmony with the well-known
Chinese secretiveness, a characteristic of this strange people which is
not only inbred but also inborn. It is possible, however, that some
other plant which is not true ginger may be used in making the
celebrated Canton preserved ginger, but, while this possibility is
suspected, it has not been proven.
The British and American markets derive their supply of ginger from
various parts of the world. The principal kinds found in commerce are
Jamaica (Fig. 5), Cochin (Fig. 3), and African (Fig. 4), the Sierra
Leone district producing the bulk of the African. Although each of these
in its turn has several varieties and qualities, the best and most
valued kind of all is Jamaica (Fig. 5), and next to it is the Cochin
(Fig. 3). The Cochin when bleached resembles Jamaica to some extent.
Ginger is classified into several species, as the narrow leaf, the broad
leaf, and the Japanese red leaf; the narrow leaf being the most
esteemed.
Ginger thrives best on rich clay or cool loam soil that is well drained.
New land which has been plowed but two or three times is best adapted to
its cultivation. The ground should be dug up and cleared of weeds. The
plant will not grow in dry sand or hard clay soil.
Ginger, being an underground stem of tuberous-appearing roots, takes its
botanical name, rhizome, from the Spanish word rais, a root. These roots
are known in commerce as races, and in Jamaica as hands, from their
irregular palmate form. The real roots are the fibers thrown off the
rhizomes.
It is a perennial, reed-like plant, similar in appearance to our iris or
flag root, two aerial stems being thrown up from each of the underground
roots (Fig. 1), which soon rise above ground to the height of three or
four feet. The first of the shoots thrown up bears the leaves, and the
second or shorter stem, the flowers, which blossom in August (rhodon) or
September. At this time the ground will be covered by the spread of the
leaves which wither and fade at the close of the year, when the root is
in a ripe state and is ready for harvesting. The leaves are alternate,
bright-green, smooth, and tapering or lanceolate at both ends, with very
short petioles which gradually diverge from the stem until they are
nearly horizontal, seven or eight inches in length.
The flowers are borne on the shorter separate stem (Fig. 2), averaging
from six to twelve inches high at the apex of the stems. They appear in
dense, ovate, oblong, cane-like spikes from two to three inches long,
composed of obtuse, strongly imbricated bracts or scales with membranous
margins between each bract, enclosing a single small yellowish-white
sessile flower with purple or blue marking, and have an agreeable
fragrance.
The ginger planting takes place in March and April when the rainy season
begins. The cleared lands are made into beds with a little raised edge
which forms trenches between the beds (see illustration), with openings
between to allow the water to run off, for, if allowed to stand on the
beds, it will cause the tubers to rot, and sometimes the beds are raised
between the rows to eighteen-inch squares, two rows being planted on
each ridge, the sides being perpendicular. Propagation is effected by
divisions of the protuberances of the roots which are broken in small
pieces, one or two inches in length, care being taken to leave at least
one short bud on each cutting; they are then planted in well-broken beds
four inches deep, in the manured holes in the trenches made in the beds
which are nine to twelve inches apart and are shaded with bushes, which
are replaced in ten days by twigs. The land must be kept well weeded
during May, June, and July. It is well to cover the land half an inch
deep with a mold of dead leaves, and when it rains the water will be
impregnated with manure which filters readily through the leaves to the
roots, and they must be kept watered in dry times.
The rhizome sometimes grows to a great size; often a single root will
weigh one pound. It is a great impovisher of land and the same ground
should not be used more than two consecutive years, and it is better to
use it but one year. The yield is 4,000 pounds and upwards to an acre,
each plant producing about eight tubers, and eight to ten times more in
weight than the amount planted.
[Illustration: MAKING A GINGER GARDEN]
[Illustration: HOEING GINGER]
The ginger of commerce varies in form from single joints an inch or less
in length to flattish, irregularly branched pieces of several joints
from three to four inches long. Each branch has a depression at its
summit, showing the former attachment of a leafy stem. The color in its
natural state is a pale buff. It has a somewhat rough or fibrous
appearance, breaking with a short, mealy fracture, and presenting on the
surface of the broken parts numerous short, bristly fibers. When young,
it has a light color, internally soft, and changing to greenish. As it
grows older it becomes grey outside and reddish internally. When ready
for digging the texture becomes fibrous and firm and heavy, and when
dried it is covered with wrinkled striated brown integuments which give
it a crude appearance, which is less developed on the flat surface and,
internally, it is less bright and delicate than ginger from which the
cuticle part has been removed. The best pieces of ginger root are
collected at the harvest and thrown into heaps and covered with cow
manure to keep the roots from drying for the next planting.
The scraped ginger, or marrow, has a pale hue and breaks readily and
moderately short, the younger and terminal portions appearing pale
yellow, being soft and starchy, while the longer transverse sections of
the more perfect and outer parts are hard, flinty, and resinous,
surrounding a farinaceous center which has a speckled appearance from
the cut extremities of the fibers and ducts. The external layer of
coated ginger is separated, about one millimeter broad, by a fine line
from the whitish mealy interior portion, through the tissue of which
numerous vascular bundles and resin cells are irregularly scattered. The
external tissue consists of loose outer layer and an inner composed of
tubular cells. These are followed by peculiar short parenchymatous
cells, the walls of which are sinuous on a transverse section, and
partially thickened, imparting a horny appearance. This delicate, felted
tissue forms the striated surface of scraped ginger and is the principal
seat of the resin and volatile oil, which here fill large spaces, the
principal constituents being of the parenchymatous cells loaded with
starch and resin. The volatile oil gives ginger its odor; the resin,
pungency. The starch granules are irregularly spherical in form,
attaining at the utmost forty millimeters in diameter. Certain varieties
of ginger, owing to the starch having been rendered gelatinous by
scalding, are throughout horny and translucent. The circle of vascular
bundles which separates the outer layers and the central portion is
narrow and has the structure of the corresponding circle or nucleus
sheath of tumeric. (See illustrations 12, 13, 14, Chap. III;
illustration 12 shows ginger adulterated; 13 and 14 pure.) Coated ginger
has usually a less bright, delicate hue than ginger from which the
cuticle part has been removed, much of it being dark, horny, and
resinous.
Ginger differs in quality and in commercial value in different
localities. It is also influenced by the cultivation, harvesting, and
preparation, but all true ginger has the same starchy, fibrous rhizome;
the best quality is plump, with little or no epidermis, while the
inferior quality is frequently coated and is not so plump.
Borneo or Cochin (Fig. 3) (or bleached ginger) is said to be produced by
submitting the root to the action of the fumes of burning sulphur or by
washing it in chloride of lime, but by chemical analysis it has been
found that the bleached appearance is due to the application of common
whitewash to the root, which is dusted over while wet with marble dust.
This treatment, of course, injures the quality of the root.
[Illustration: KINGSTON, JAMAICA]
The Cochin ginger is what is called the white ginger. It is prepared by
washing and scraping the roots one at a time. This process takes much
time, and the only benefit to be derived from it is that it makes the
root more agreeable to the eye, and for that reason causes it to bring a
much higher price.
At the time of digging the rhizomes boiling is kept in the field with
frequent changing of water, and the roots intended for market are
plunged into the boiling water and allowed to remain for about ten
minutes. This process injures the aromatic spirits of the ginger.
At the first of the year, in January or February, the harvesting takes
place. The form in which ginger is harvested differs in different
countries. In some countries the ginger is dried with the epidermis
removed. This is known as scraped ginger. In other countries the ginger
is harvested without removing the epidermis. These two forms of the
product are known commercially as coated and uncoated ginger. The
scraped ginger is exported mostly from Cochin and Brazil, the coated
from Africa and from a district of India, and is known as Malabar
ginger. It is exported from the city of Calcutta.
When the roots are first dug they are placed in baskets suspended by
ropes and are pulled by two men with ropes at each end of the basket for
two hours each day for two days, giving them a good shaking up to remove
the scales and rootlets. The rhizomes are next spread on a raised
platform to dry for eight days and are then shaken, when two more days’
drying puts them in keeping state for the market. They are put up in
parcels of one hundred pounds each. The product is known as black
ginger.
With proper care much money might be made by cultivating ginger in
India, but since this crop receives but little care it has but a small
market value. The roots many times are cared for by simply smearing with
cow manure. They are hung about huts to dry and become shriveled and
dirty, and although they may be well smoked, they will be badly bored by
the bamboo insects.
India ginger is quite similar to African and is known in commerce as
Calcutta (not shown in illustration), from the city of export and is
largely used for flavoring. It also is superior for ginger snaps, ginger
beer, and ginger wine.
The African and Barbadoes differ from the India by the epidermis being
less shriveled. They are not so hard or dark, and are sometimes scraped
and bleached and made white by the chemical process of chloride of lime,
a process which impairs the quality of the product but increases its
market value. The bleaching and coating with gypsum or carbonate of lime
is a process often applied to old and inferior roots to make them
salable by making them more attractive to the eye. The Jamaica is the
best ginger and is always told by its pale, bright-yellow color. The
real marrow or white ginger (Zingiber album) is obtained from the
scraped Jamaica ginger, which is free from resin and will give up
properties to water very readily, a fact which makes it very valuable
for medicinal use.
China preserved ginger has a more agreeable aromatic flavor than that of
the West Indies, and the celebrated Canton preserved excels all other
preserved ginger. The syrup waters drawn off are used for cool drinks.
Canton exported for the first quarter of the year 1905 650 piculs of
preserved ginger of 133 pounds each.
When the tubers are intended for sugar-pressed ginger, they are dug in
early spring, while green, to obtain that which is young, tender, and
full of juice. The soft, succulent, perennial rhizomes at such times
rarely exceed five to six inches in length and are known as green
ginger. They are buried in another place for a month and are then dried
in the sunshine for one day, after which they are fit for green ginger.
[Illustration: CANTON, CHINA]
[Illustration: MANDEVILLE, JAMAICA]
Preserved ginger (_Condition Zangibaris_) is prepared by cleaning the
green root, which is dug when young and tender and full of sap, before
it is hard and woody, and scalding it until it is sufficiently tender.
It is next put into cold water and peeled and scraped gradually, an
operation which may last three or four days, the water being changed
often. After this it is put into glass jars and covered with a thin or
weak syrup which, in two or three days, is changed for a richer syrup.
Sometimes even a third syrup is poured off for the fourth and yet
thicker syrup, but not often. The syrup will be very thick and the
ginger will be bright and nearly transparent. The following rule for
making preserved ginger is infallible: Let the young tubers boil for
twenty-four hours, then peel off the discolored and hard parts. Next
boil one pound loaf sugar in six pints of water and pour the syrup over
twelve pounds of the cooked ginger in a jar. Let it stand for one week,
when the syrup is drawn off and the ginger is again boiled and treated
to another syrup like the first and left to stand another week, when
again the syrup should be drawn off through a fine sieve. Return the
ginger to the stone jar and pour over it the final syrup, made of twelve
pints of boiling water and twelve pounds of loaf sugar, boiled and
stirred until it is as thick as good honey, and will drop slowly from a
silver spoon, the ginger having been previously covered with boiling
water and allowed to remain until cool. It is next placed in the bottles
or jars for which it is intended, in small pieces, as closely as they
will pack, up to the cork, so that there will be no room for air. It is
then corked with a good, new cork. Candied ginger is dried, sprinkled
with sugar, and is imported in boxes.
In order to powder ginger root it must first be passed through a cracker
machine, as it is called, to reduce it to a proper size for feeding in a
mill. The mill consists of a roller provided with very coarse teeth,
which revolve through similar stationary teeth; the material is retained
by a semi-circular perforated plate until it is reduced to the size of
the perforation, or about the size of a coffee bean, when it is then
ready for the burr stones.
In ground ginger little of its structure is seen beyond the starchy
grains which can readily be distinguished by their shape and by their
fibrous, vascular bundles which are easily traceable. In the unscraped
ginger the outer horny layer is to be seen, but not distinct in its
character at any time, and when scalding of the rhizomes takes place,
the starch grains are swollen and it is more difficult to find the
foreign particles. Good powdered ginger should have the fibers taken out
by sifting.
The best ginger cuts pale, but bright, with a varied color, both outside
and inside. Its consistency is ascertained by cutting, and varies from
hard to soft or, as is termed in the trade, flinty, the soft being the
best. The popular medicinal stimulant known as Jamaica ginger extract is
an alcoholic extract of ginger root, and is often resorted to by old
topers who can no longer be satisfied with whiskey.
Salable essence of ginger is made by taking one pint of strong tincture
of the finest Jamaica, to which add in small portions at a time finely
powdered slacked lime, shaking vigorously after each addition, until the
tincture ceases to lose color, then throw the whole upon a filter and
pass through the residue proof spirit until the product will measure two
pints. Next add, drop by drop, diluted sulphuric acid until the rich
yellow of the tincture suddenly disappears. Let it stand twenty-four
hours, dilute with water to four pints, and shake with a little powdered
pumice or silica and filter at 0 degrees C., if possible.
Ginger lozenges are used as a confectionery which frequently benefits
dyspepsia and generally encourages flesh.
Ginger-beer powders are made by mixing two ounces of white sugar with
twenty-six grains of bicarbonate of soda, five grains of powdered
ginger, and one drop of essence of lemon, put in white paper. In blue
paper put half ounce of tartaric acid. In drinking use in the same way
as seidlitz powder.
The following is a good recipe for making ginger beer, and it has a high
medical authority as yielding a very superior beverage, and one that
will keep for several months: White sugar, twenty pounds; lemon juice,
eighteen fluid ounces; honey, one pound; bruised ginger, twenty-two
ounces; water, eighteen gallons. Boil the ginger in three gallons of
water for half an hour, then add the sugar, the lemon juice, and the
honey with the remainder of the water, and strain through a cloth; when
cold, add the white of one egg and half an ounce of essence of lemon;
after standing for four or five days, bottle. The bottles should be laid
on their sides in a cellar, and the beer is ready for use in about three
weeks. If a little yeast has been used the beer is ready in about two
days, but in this case the beer does not keep well.
[Illustration: MONTEGO]
[Illustration: PORT ROYAL, JAMAICA]
The principal consumption of ginger is not only as a useful aromatic
spice, but when applied to the nostrils it acts as an irritant and
produces sneezing. The native doctors prize it highly as a stimulant. It
is especially valued for paralytic and rheumatic troubles, and also for
intermittent fevers. Europeans often use infusions of ginger for
delicate nerves in place of tea. The green root cut into strips and
steeped is thought to be superior to the dried root.
Rhizome chewed relieves toothache and powerfully increases the flow of
saliva, and to the stomach it operates as a stimulant, first to the
alimentary canal and, secondly, to the body in general, especially the
organs of respiration. In enfeebled and relaxed habits, especially of
old and gouty individuals, it promotes digestion and relieves flatulency
and spasms of the stomach and bowels. It checks and prevents nausea and
griping, which is sometimes produced by some drastic purgative, and a
ginger plaster when applied to the forehead will relieve headache. When
powdered and used with hot water and applied externally it produces a
sensation of intense heat, and slight redness, and adds cordial
qualities to the tonic.
Powdered ginger may be taken in doses of ten grains or more in the form
of a pill or in tea. When used to excess, however, it is very dangerous,
as it slowly destroys the lining of the stomach and causes lingering
pain and agonizing death.
Ginger contains a great deal of alcohol. This fact accounts for the
formation of the so-called ginger habit to which the victim becomes a
slave as to the whiskey, opium, or tobacco habit. Indulgence in this
habit is more dangerous because ginger is supposed to be harmless.
A careful qualitative examination of the character of the extracts at
times may reveal the presence of an adulterant, but the chief dependence
is examination under the microscope. The microscope, however, will not
reveal the presence of exhausted ginger, and a careful study of the
effect of exhaustion on the proximate composition of the ground root is,
therefore, desirable. It would naturally increase the relative
percentage of fiber and albuminoids and starch, and diminish that of the
extract matter.
There is a variety of ginger known and cultivated by the Chinese under
the name of _Galangal A. officinarom_. It is very thick and slightly
flattened and is prized by the Siamese and Chinese as a substitute for
ginger. In Siam it is known as Alpinia. There is also a variety found
and cultivated in Siam similar to Alpinia allughas, called luk reu or
bastard cardamom, which has the cardamom-like fruit. Ginger usually
comes to New York in 110 to 120-pound bags and 130-pound barrels.
The yield of oil from ginger is from 1.9 to 2.7 per cent., having a
specific gravity at 15 degrees C. of 0.880 to 0.885, and an optical
rotation of 25 to 40 degrees in a 100-millimeter tube.
The chemical composition of ginger oil remains unknown, but it is known
to contain camphene and other ingredients; its complex nature is
indicated by the wide range of its boiling point.
When distilled, after drying over CaCl_{2}, the boil begins to pass over
at 140 degrees C., accompanied by a few drops of aqueous fluid, the
temperature constantly and rapidly rising to about 240 degrees, the
chief portion of the oil coming over between 240 degrees and 270 degrees
C. and a little passes over between 270 degrees and 300 degrees, but
evidently accompanied by decomposition products, a transparent, brown,
tenacious, semi-solid residue remaining in flask.
The lower boiling products retain the ginger aroma, which is noted when
diluted with spirits, and are much more soluble in rectified spirits
than higher fractions. Oil of ginger is yellow in color and its odor is
intensely like that of the root; that of Jamaica is the most fragrant,
but has not the burning, pungent taste of ginger, which is due to
gingerol, the active pungent principle of the root.
Gingerol exists in the dried rhizomes to the extent of from 0.600 to
1.450 per cent. It is of a pale straw color and odorless, with a
pungent, bitter taste. It is soluble in alcohol in even 50 per cent.
dilution; it is also soluble in benzene, volatile oils, carbon
disulphide, solution of potash and ammonia, and glacial acetic acid, and
very slightly soluble in petroleum ether, consisting of resin, starch,
mucilage, and paraffine, organic acids, oxalic acids as CaC_{2}C_{4}
cellulose albuminoids, etc., which constituents of ginger are found to
be odorless and tasteless.
The alcoholic solution is neutral in reaction and gives no precipitate
with the acetates of lead nor with lime, and does not yield glucose when
treated with diluted sulphuric acid. Strong sulphuric acid dissolves it
with the production of a brown color; hydrochloric acid does not affect
it. Nitric acid converts it into a blood-red resinous substance.
Adulterants of ginger are sago, tapioca, flour of rice, wheat, and
potatoes, Cayenne and mustard hulls, and tumeric and exhausted ginger.
The foreign starches, Cayenne, and mustard hulls are easily detected,
but the tumeric (East India arrowroot) cells, from their resemblance to
the resin globules of the ginger, are most confusing. For detection of
exhausted ginger recourse must be had to proximate analysis.
Chemical composition of ginger:
Ash may vary from 3.4 to 8 per cent.; fiber, 1.7 to 9 per cent.
The white ginger has less ash than the dark, as is also the case in
regard to the percentage of fiber.
Water, 11.00 to 9.10
Ash, 7.02 to 3.39
Volatile Oil, 2.54 to .96
Fixed Oil, 4.58 to 2.29
Starch, 53.33 to 46.16
Crude Fiber, 7.65 to 1.70
Albuminoids, 10.85 to 5.25
It is said that the water and starch extract from the weight of the
newly dug root 75 to 85 per cent., and yet the dried root retains all
the valuable aromatic qualities.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: NUTMEG. (Myristica)
1 Nutmeg with Mace and part inner shell
2 Brown Pedang
3 Long Macassar with Mace
4 Singapore or Batavia
5 Flowering twig with leaf
6 Burr just opening showing the Mace]