Ginger

Ginger is a tropical perennial of the family that also holds turmeric, cardamom and galangal, and the spice is its knobbly, branching rhizome. Leafy, reed-like stems about a metre tall rise from the rhizome, with the flowers carried on separate spikes. It is a true cultigen, unknown in the wild. It arose in Maritime Southeast Asia, where Austronesian peoples domesticated it, used it in rites of healing and of protection from spirits and in blessing their ships, and carried it across the Indo-Pacific as far as Hawaii. It was among the first spices traded out of Asia. Confucius was said to eat it at every meal, Arab traders brought it to the Mediterranean, where Dioscorides and Pliny described it, and in the sixteenth century it became the leading export of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Kynes records it in the temple incense of Syria, Egypt, Greece, Rome and India, thrown on the fire or rubbed as a paste onto sticks and onto statues of the gods; as an aphrodisiac in early medieval Europe; as a guard against plague in sixteenth-century England; as one of the spices of Italian exorcisms; and hung on a string about the necks of Thai children to keep harmful spirits away. Cunningham eats ginger before working a spell to lend it heat and power, above all in love magic, and uses it for money and success.