China ginger is not imported in a dried state, the rhizomes being too tender and succulent to thoroly dry for export. It is preserved or candied. For preserving, the rhizomes are first scalded, then washed in cold water and peeled, then boiled in pans for 2 or 3 hours; then transferred to copper pans and boiled for 2 hours in a mixture of sugar and water—just sufficient water to cover the roots, 5 lbs. of sugar to 10 lbs. of ginger, the roots having been pierced with a sharp instrument to enable the sugar to soak into them. After boiling the ginger is put into large jars and stands for several days, when it is again boiled in sugar and water in the same quantities. After it has become cold it is packed in jars or tins for export. To crystallize, the same process is gone thru, only in the final boiling it is boiled until the sugar become dry.
The Chinese season for preserving ginger is from July to October. It is nearly all prepared in Canton and Hongkong. A kind known as Ng Mai Keunig is preserved in Swaton, from Alpina galanga, but it is not like the Canton or Hankou ginger and is only made for native consumption, to be used medicinally or for cooking. Some of it goes to the Straits Settlement, but none to Hongkong. Jamaica preserved ginger is mostly put up in glass bottles. The uses of ginger are too well known to need repeating.
MUSTARD
Well Known to the Ancients, but More in a Medicinal Way—How Cultivated and Prepared for Commercial Uses
Mustard was well known to the ancients, but more in a medicinal way than dietetic. From an edict of Diocletian, 30 A. D., in which it is mentioned along with alimentary substances, we must suppose it was then regarded as a condiment, at least in the eastern parts of the Roman empire. In Europe, during the middle ages, mustard was a valued accompaniment to food, especially with the salted meats which constituted a large portion of the diet of our ancestors during the winter. In the Welsh “Meddygon Myddrai” of the 13th century, a paragraph is devoted to the “Virtues of Mustard.” In household accounts of the 13th and 14th centuries, mustard is of constant occurrence; it was then cultivated in England, but not extensively. The price of the seed between 1285 and 1340 varied from 1s 3d to 6s 8d per quarter (21 lbs.), but between 1347 and 1376 it was as high as 15s and 16s. In the accounts of the Abbey of St. Germain des Pres in Paris, 800 A. D., mustard is specially mentioned as a regular part of the revenue of the convent lands.
The essential oil of mustard was first noticed in 1660 by Nicolas le Febre and more distinctly in 1732 by Boerharroe.
The word mustard comes from the Italian, murtard, which is derived from the Latin must-um, unfermented grape juice, with which the Italians formerly mixed ground mustard. The Athenians called it napy; while the Hellenistic name was sinapi, or sinapy, whence the Latin sinapi, or sinapis, from which is derived the German word senf. Hippocrates used mustard in medicine under the name of Vanuit. The dark seed, which comes from Trieste, Austria, is called Trieste mustard. Spoken of by Theophnastus, Galin and others. What is called French mustard, German mustard, etc., is made of the dressings mixed with vinegar, garlic and other spices and flavoring musterial. The form in which table mustard is now sold dates from 1720, about which time Mrs. Clements, of Durham, Eng., hit on the idea of grinding the seed in a mill and sifting the flour from the husk. This bright yellow farina rapidly attained wide popularity. The fame of “Durham Mustard” was spread far and wide, Mrs. Clements traveling to London and principal cities twice a year taking orders.
There are two species of mustard plants from which ground mustard is made. The sinapes alba, white or yellow mustard, and sinapes nigra, brown or black mustard, is the mustard plant spoken of in Luke XIII, 19. They are annual herbs, three to 6 ft. high, with lyrate leaves, yellow flowers, and slender pods, from one to four inches long, containing a single row of roundish seeds.
One of the peculiarities incident to the cultivation of mustard is the fact that two crops of mustard cannot be raised on the same ground in succession. Another variety is sinapes arvenus, or wild mustard, called charlock and used for adulterating; the Sarepta, the black seed of the sinapes juncea, from the East Indies, is used for the same purpose. Sarepta is called from a city of that name in Russia, in the government of Saratov.
The brown or black variety is sown in January and the yellow or white in March, the seed being sown broadcast and harvested in August. A reaper is used, cutting the stalks and throwing them in bunches, where they are left to cure until October. They are now thoroly dry and are taken to a convenient place, spread out upon sheets of canvas and rolled with a heavy roller. The stalks and empty pods are then raked off, and the chaff and seeds remaining are run thru a fanning machine, after which process they are ready to sack and market.