Ginger is botanically known as Zingiber officinale, and is one the of the world’s favorite spices.  We use ginger all the time.  Almost everybody remembers being told as a young child, the story of the Gingerbread Man, or the stories of Hansel and Gretel and the witch with her house made of candy and gingerbread.  Ginger snap cookies and gingerbread are in many homes, a favorite treat not only for children but also for parents.  To many, the smell of ginger brings to mind wonderful memories involving baking and loved ones gathering together at Thanksgiving or Christmas time accompanied by these aromatic and spicy ginger cookies.  Many people use ginger regularly in their everyday cooking.  Could there be more than just the possibilities of cooking amazing flavored dishes and casseroles that we can learn from our dear friend ginger?  She is an amazing plant with a fantastic amount of herbal and healing qualities that can be beneficial in all of our lives.   It is amazing how the root of a plant could hold such a vast amount of treasures in the form of medicinal qualities, when used as a whole herb.  We definitely need to take a closer look at ginger. 

 

Let us begin at the place where ginger may have received her start.  No one really knows the exact origin of Ginger, but some say that it was most likely discovered in the tropics of Southeast Asia.  Perhaps if we look closer at the botanical name, we can find its origin.  Some botanists argue that its Sanskrit name indicates India as the site of origin¹.  Confirming this hypothesis, however, is next to impossible because of the secretive trade and wide cultivation which have left no documents or its origin or existence in the wild state.

 

Ginger was given its official botanical name, Zingiber officinale, by the famous eighteenth-century Swedish botanist, Linnaeus.  Linnaeus derived the genus title Zingiber from its Indian Sanskrit name singabera which means shaped like a horn.² In Dr. Christopher’s newsletter about ginger, he writes that the name ginger is from the Arabic word Zindschebil, meaning root of Zindschi, or India.  The specific name refers to ingredients of preparations made in druggist’s shops.  It is called Jamaica Ginger because the most used medicinal root comes from Jamaica, and as a side note, some people claim that this is the root that has the best flavor.³

 

From early written records very lucrative ginger trade routes were guarded with secrecy and intrigue by those who occupied these routes.  Early Arab traders protected their passages and personal supplies of ginger from the Greeks and Romans by actually fabricating a fabled land inhabited by a primitive and ruthless people they called the Troglodytes.  Interestingly, the Arabs secretive business engagements probably had more than economics at their roots. In the holiest text of Islam, the Koran, ginger is regarded as a spiritual and heavenly beverage.

 

The most ancient literature of all the great civilizations of the Middle East, Asia, and Europe contains testimonials to both the medicinal and economic importance of ginger.  From five-thousand-year-old Greek literature to 200 B.C. Chinese records, ancient historians equated the ownership of ginger or its trade routes with prosperity.   A Chinese historian wrote how thousands of acres were planted only in ginger and bringing immense wealth.⁴   Marco Polo wrote of its discovery in China. Malabar and parts of India, particularly Bengal, are also famed for ginger’s birthplace.  Francisco do Mendoza transplanted it from the East Indies into Spain where they cultivated it intensively. Well into the Middle Ages, ginger sustained its economic and cultural significance.  This is affirmed by records of transactions in England where just one pound was considered worth 1 shilling and 7 pence, approximately equivalent to the price of a sheep.⁵  Ginger actually became synonymous with the word spice.  For hundreds of years it graced only the dinner tables of the upper class or royalty. 

 

For thousands of years, trade in spices like ginger became the measure of an empire’s wealth and power.  Fortunately for ginger, its worldwide cultivation was insured by the economics of the spice trade and its stimulus to colonialism.  The Spanish people, who were particularly aggressive explorers and colonialist, were one of the key nations responsible for taking ginger around the globe and encouraging its cultivation in the New World.

 

 

 

 

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