Nass­er Khan

In this in­stal­ment in the se­ries FOOD FOR THOUGHT, GROW & EAT LO­CAL, we fo­cus on gin­ger (sci­en­tif­ic name Zin­giber of­fic­i­nale) and one of the two pop­u­lar bev­er­ages as­so­ci­at­ed with T&T's Christ­mas sea­son. In the pre­vi­ous in­stal­ment, we fea­tured the oth­er favourite–sor­rel. Both drinks, sta­ples in most Tri­ni homes at this time, are re­al treats to your palate, en­joyed by most with their strong, dis­tinc­tive and zesty flavours.

Did you know that there are 149 crops (84 fruits, 35 veg­eta­bles, 12 root crops and 18 herbs) that are grown in Trinidad, not count­ing the va­ri­eties with­in many of them? Es­ti­mates have it that our food im­port bill is at $4 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly and grow­ing.

Did you know that in the 1960s the Mac­queripe Val­ley was lush with cit­rus and ba­nana fields pro­duc­ing more than enough to sup­ply the na­tion? Oil cen­tric­i­ty, in­dus­tri­al­i­sa­tion, and non-agri­cul­tur­al busi­ness have put paid sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor. In­no­va­tion in agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion will as­sist lo­cal farm­ers if we are to re­duce our huge food im­port bill.

One or­gan­i­sa­tion try­ing to make a dent in our food im­port bill is led by 28-year-old "farmer­pre­neur" Al­pha De­noon, who re­cent­ly launched a project in To­ba­go called WHY­FARM (We Help Youth Farm), a NGO de­vel­oped to help young men and women, ex­ist­ing and new farm­ers, cap­i­talise on the op­por­tu­ni­ties and over­come the chal­lenges in the agri­cul­ture in­dus­try by be­com­ing stronger lead­ers and more dy­nam­ic voic­es in their lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties.

Gin­ger, in­dige­nous to south Chi­na, spread even­tu­al­ly to the then Spice Is­lands and oth­er parts of Asia and lat­er to West Africa. As part of the spice trade it was ex­port­ed to Eu­rope via In­dia in the first cen­tu­ry and used wide­ly by the Ro­mans. In­dia is now the largest pro­duc­er of gin­ger.

Records show that be­gin­ning in 1585, Ja­maican gin­ger was the first ori­en­tal spice cul­ti­vat­ed in the New World and im­port­ed back to Eu­rope. With both the slave trade and in­den­ture­ship, the gin­ger plant made its way to T&T be­com­ing a pop­u­lar med­i­c­i­nal and food and drink item lo­cal­ly.

Gin­ger is a mono­cotyle­do­nous (mem­ber of the grass fam­i­ly) herba­ceous peren­ni­al in the fam­i­ly Zin­gib­er­aceae which grows an­nu­al stems about a me­tre tall, bear­ing nar­row green leaves with swollen un­der­ground stems. The word Zin­giber is de­rived from a San­skrit word de­not­ing "horn shaped," in ref­er­ence to the pro­tru­sions on the rhi­zome (un­der­ground stem).

Even though it is com­mon­ly re­ferred to as "gin­ger root," it is re­al­ly the stem of the plant. Oth­er mem­bers of the fam­i­ly Zin­gib­er­aceae which are used as spices and med­i­cine, like gin­ger, in­clude turmer­ic (hal­di, hul­di or saf­fron) and car­damom (elaichi).

Gin­ger has a wide range of culi­nary us­es. Young gin­ger rhi­zomes are juicy and fleshy with a very mild taste. They can be pick­led in vine­gar as a snack or used as an in­gre­di­ent in many dish­es. They can be steeped in boil­ing wa­ter to make gin­ger ti­sane, to which hon­ey is of­ten added; sliced or­ange or lemon fruit may be added; made in­to can­dy or even gin­ger wine for those so in­clined.

Ma­ture gin­ger rhi­zomes are fi­brous and al­most dry. The juice from gin­ger roots is of­ten used as a spice in In­di­an recipes and is a com­mon in­gre­di­ent of Chi­nese, Ko­re­an, Japan­ese, Viet­namese, and many south Asian cuisines for flavour­ing dish­es such as seafood, meat, and veg­e­tar­i­an dish­es.

In West­ern cui­sine, gin­ger is tra­di­tion­al­ly used main­ly in sweet foods such as gin­ger ale, gin­ger­bread, gin­ger snaps and cook­ies. Pow­dered dry gin­ger root is typ­i­cal­ly used as a flavour­ing for recipes such as gin­ger­bread, cook­ies, crack­ers and cakes and gin­ger ale. Can­died gin­ger or crys­tallised gin­ger is the young root cooked in sug­ar un­til soft, and is a type of con­fec­tionery. Fresh gin­ger may be peeled be­fore eat­ing. For longer-term stor­age, the gin­ger can be placed in a plas­tic bag and re­frig­er­at­ed or frozen.

In the world of med­i­cine, both tra­di­tion­al and mod­ern, gin­ger's an­ti-vi­ral, an­ti-tox­ic, and an­ti-fun­gal prop­er­ties are used for the treat­ment of var­i­ous gas­troin­testi­nal, pul­monary, car­dio­vas­cu­lar and even sex­u­al dis­or­ders since an­tiq­ui­ty in Unani (Per­sian/Mogul), Aryurvedic and Chi­nese med­i­cines. Warm gin­ger tea is com­mon­ly used for nau­sea, the com­mon cold, up­set stom­ach, and for trav­el sick­ness. It is well known and used in T&T as the tra­di­tion­al "bush med­i­cine" rem­e­dy for many ail­ments. These days such reme­dies are called "herbal".

Gin­ger is eas­i­ly prop­a­gat­ed/ grown from the rhi­zomes. Farm­ers tra­di­tion­al­ly plant gin­ger at the on­set of the rains on raised mounds or beds that are well ir­ri­gat­ed and har­vest­ed at Christ­mas time but can be har­vest­ed at any time of the year, mak­ing it an ide­al can­di­date for the back­yard en­thu­si­ast. The roots can be sim­ply placed in a pot of mixed soil and placed where it gets a com­bi­na­tion of sun and shade dur­ing the day.

When they sprout the roots are ready to be trans­ferred to the ground, then it takes three months to ma­ture spread­ing out in­to a wide area and will keep spread­ing as long as the soil is fer­tile. When the gin­ger blooms, it pro­duces a small cone shaped green­ish yel­low flower on a short stem.

Last year, around Christ­mas, gin­ger was be­ing sold at $15 per lb. Like the oth­er pop­u­lar Tri­ni Christ­mas bev­er­age–sor­rel, gin­ger beer is com­mer­cial­ly pro­duced and avail­able out­side of its tra­di­tion­al "sea­son" along with sev­er­al oth­er prod­ucts made from gin­ger such as gin­ger tea, can­died or pick­led gin­ger, ground gin­ger (gin­ger pow­der), and prod­ucts in which gin­ger is an in­gre­di­ent such as gra­nola bars, sauces, cook­ies, gin­ger­bread and soft drinks.

The 149 crops grown in T&T are de­pict­ed on two charts with a pho­to of each crop in al­pha or­der giv­ing the lo­cal and sci­en­tif­ic or­der and were spon­sored by First Cit­i­zens.

The mod­el has been du­pli­cat­ed in Bar­ba­dos, St Lu­cia and St Vin­cent and ef­forts are un­der­way to do so in Ja­maica and Guyana as well. Copies have been dis­trib­uted to all schools and li­braries.

This se­ries is writ­ten by Nass­er Khan in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Cyn­thra Per­sad, re­tired di­rec­tor of Re­search, Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture. For in­for­ma­tion on ac­quir­ing copies of the two Crops of T&T charts, email fruit­stt@live.com