Ginger fresh EO Organic
Origin: Madagascar

• Details and product description

  Introduction:

  Ginger is an herbaceous perennial, originating from India and Tropical Asia. It belongs to a genus that is widespread in the tropical regions of Asia, India, South-East Asia, Malaysia, and Pacific Islands.   Zingiber officinale, the most important, was introduced in all regions of the tropics. The common cooking ginger is an herbaceous perennial with upright stems and narrow medium green leaves arranged in two ranks on each stem. The plant gets about 4 foot tall with leaves about 3/4" wide and 7" long. Ginger grows from an aromatic tuberlike rhizome (underground stem) which is warty and branched. The inflorescence grows on a separate stem from the foliage sterile stem, and forms a dense spike, up to 3" tall. The bracts are green with translucent margins and the small flowers are yellow green with purple lips and cream colored blotches. Most gingers in cultivation are sterile cultivars grown for the edible rhizome, and the flower is rarely seen. True ginger can be distinguished by its shorter stalks, which are 2 - 3 feet high. It has fleshy, tuberous, and aromatic rhizomes There is a cultivar of Zingiber officinale known as 'Sunti', which comes from Java and is similar to the common cooking ginger, but forms smaller rhizomes. It is used in the same way as common ginger but is said to have better medicinal qualities.  The French word “gingembre” comes from the Latin zingiber, itself borrowed from the Greek zingiberis. The Greek term supposedly comes from the Arab zangabil, whose origin can be found in the Sanskrit term srngavera (“horn-shaped”), which is the source of current names for ginger in India.

  History:

  This herb has a long history of use throughout the world and traditional Chinese medicine has recommended ginger for over 2,500 years. But its use as a spice is so ancient that it predates historical records. The first record by Confucius is dated 551-449 B.C. Marco Polo reported seeing it in China between 1280 and 1290. The Latin name Zingiber is derived from the Sanskrit word "shringavera" which means "shaped like a deer's antlers" in respect to its branched rhizome. The word ginger evolved in English from the Latin zingiber as "gingifer" and "gingivere". A few of the hypotheses regarding the plant’s origin include the hypothesis that ginger originates from India, China or the forests of South-East Asia. These are. Used in Asia since time immemorial for medicinal purposes or as a condiment, it has always been cultivated and maintained there. Ginger is also one of the first Oriental spices to have won over the Mediterranean basin, probably due to the Phoenicians before the 4th century BC. In ancient Egypt, ginger was an ingredient in the mummification process. It arrived in Greece and in the Roman Empire through Arab or Persian merchants, and then spread throughout Europe as early as the 1st century. Its origin, like that of cinnamon, was jealously guarded by the merchants, and for a long time it was thought that ginger was the root of pepper. In the 9th century, ginger was one of the most known spices because it was cheaper than pepper, but just as powerful and exotic. A pound of ginger, which was a luxury, was exchanged for one sheep. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, ginger was introduced to the New World (Antilles, Mexico), certainly to take advantage of the windfall that the spice market in Europe represented. Production rapidly exceeded expectations, “ginger was brought from India to the island of Hispañiola, and multiplied in such a way that it was impossible to know what to do with it, for it is true that the fleet of the year 1587 brought back 22,053 quintals of it to Seville,” according to an extract from the Natural and Moral History of the Indies (1589) by Joseph de Acosta. Until the 18th century, it was commonly used in cooking. It fell out of use until it disappeared from European tables, as the French writer, thinker and priest, Guillaume-Thomas Raynal (1713-1796) tells us in his Histoire philosophique des deux Indes: “ginger fell into a sort of contempt, and its cultivation was almost abandoned everywhere except in Jamaica”. Today, ginger is found on tables the world over, from the West Indies to Africa, from Asia to Europe. Great chefs of world gastronomy use it to renew traditional dishes.

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