[Sca-cooks] Ginger?

[Terry Decker]

"The root of the pepper-tree is not, as some have thought, the substance
called "ginger," although it's taste is similar.  Ginger grows on farms in
Arabia and in the country of the Ethiopian Cave-dwellers.  Ginger is a small
plant with a white root."

Pliny, Natural History, 79 CE

"Ginger groweth in Spain, Barbary, in the Canarie Islands and the Azores.
Our men who sacked Domingo in the Indies, digged it up in sundry places
wild."

John Gerard, Herball, 1597 CE


Ginger appears to have been a fairly common spice when trade was going well.
The Romans transshipped it from Alexandria and added a surcharge to keep the
prices inflated.  Pliny comments on this ruse and the fact that ginger was
six denarii per pound.

Cultivation in the Mediterranean Basin is probably due to the Islamic
expansion, but the evidence is scarce.  It was almost certainly transported
via the Venetian spice trade.

Ginger was transplanted to the Caribbean where the first export crop to
Europe is said to have been in 1585.  Although the "ginger" found by the men
who sacked Domingo may be "wild ginger" (Asarum canadense or another member
of the genus Asarum).

Bear