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.
CANTON, CHINA
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.