CHAPTER XI
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.