Ginger Snapshot

By Audrey Stallsmith

Yes, by Saint Anne; and ginger shall be hot i' the mouth too.

William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night Act II, Scene III

I’ve been spicing up my life with a little ginger lately. When I was going to be working at the election all day, I needed cookies to take along and recalled that I hadn’t made ginger snaps for years.

One of my ways of living dangerously is to look up the best-rated recipes online and combine two of them--in this case a more typical recipe with a more “fancy” one. The latter included three types of ginger and cardamom. I didn’t have fresh ginger root to grate, so had to make do with two types, the common powdered stuff and crystallized ginger, not to mention that my cardamom was more than a little aged. 

Still, the “hybrid” cookies turned out well, or so I was assured by the other women on the election board. (They apparently weren’t as enthusiastic about my apple muffins which they scarcely touched!) And I will, no doubt, be adding ginger to pumpkin pie later in the month.    

The spice is derived from the root of a plant, Zingiber officinale, which is perennial only in USDA zones 9 through 12. I once planted fresh ginger root in a pot, just for fun, and it grew quite amiably under my grow lights, but never flowered here.  Originating in southeast Asia, the tropical can reach 3 feet in height where it is happy and produce yellow and purple orchid-like blooms.

Earlier in the year, I also added the gingers and other spices to peach jam. At that time, I tried nibbling on crystallized ginger as if it were candy, so I knew that it can be ‘hot i’ the mouth” as the opening quote says. But it is a pleasant, warming sort of burn. I used to take ginger capsules if I was going to have to be riding in the back seat of a car for any distance. Although those, too, would burn a bit if I forgot to eat something with them, they also prevented me from getting carsick.

In fact, ginger is one of the best remedies for any type of motion sickness, though you’ll want to take it before the motion starts for the best results. We used to quaff ginger ale by the liter whenever we all caught a case of “stomach flu,” since it can calm a “churning” digestive system. However, that ale must contain the real spice to work. Back in merry old England, they used to sprinkle ginger atop their beer and stir it in with a hot poker.    

Michael Castleman mentions that the spice appeared in a Chinese herbal as early as 3000 BC, so it has been working its healing magic for a very long time, with Confucius reportedly consuming a little every day. The ancient Greeks wrapped the root in bread to aid their digestion. Eventually, someone got the bright idea of incorporating the spice into the bread and gingerbread made its debut, being apparently highly popular by Shakepeare’s time.

Ginger also can kill viruses and rev up the immune system, so it may have been a better choice than I knew on a day when we election workers would be coming into contact with so many possibly infected people. Being anti-inflammatory, the spice relieves pain as well in addition to lowering blood pressure, reducing cholesterol, and even shrinking tumors in rodents. 

It also can slow the heart rate and just have a generally all around calming effect. Something we all need in this year of Covid and controversy!

 

Zingiber officinale image is from Kohler's Medizinal Pflanzen by F. E. Kohler, courtesy of plantillustrations.org.