GINGER

3rd January 2024

Photo Credits: yogesh_more (Getty Image), bdspnimage, CANVA

TOBY: Out o’ tune, sir? You lie. Art any more than a steward?

Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous,

There shall be no more cakes and ale?

FOOL: Yes, by Saint Anne, and ginger shall be hot i’ th’ mouth, too.

TOBY & FOOL: Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 3

GINGER (ZIngiber officinale)

Ginger turns up throughout Shakespeare’s work as a spice, a metaphor for heat and also in the form of Gingerbread and even Pepper Gingerbread. Ginger turns up in all sorts of contemporary recipes including, meat, poultry, fish, and sweet dishes like fruit tarts.

John Gerard describes his attempts to grow Ginger in London in the late Elizabethan period. “Ginger is most impatient of the coldness of these our Northern regions, as myself have found by proof, for that there have been brought unto me at several times sundry plants thereof, fresh, greene and full of juice, as well from the West Indies, as from Barbary and other places, which have sprouted and budded forth green leaves in my garden in the heat of summer, but as soon as it hath been touched with the first sharp blast of Winter, it hath presently perished both blade and root.”

Ginger is native to India, the Himalaya Region and South Central China. It is a rhizome, a horizontal stem which grows just under the soil, rather than a root.

More Information

John Gerard, 1597 (first edition), The Herballe or Generall Historie of Plantes (1636 edition accessed via Archive.org)

English Heritage: History of Gingerbread

Kew: Christmas Species

Kew Plants of the World Online: Ginger