CH. VI] SPICES 89 



almost anywhere else, though of late bananas are being planted 

 on much of the land formerly occupied by ginger, and give an 

 equal or better return with less work. It is a small herb, with 

 a stout underground rhizome or root-stock, known to planters 

 as a race, which is the actual spice. The plant grows to about 

 one to three feet high, and the flowers come off on separate 

 branches from the root-stock. The plant must be grown in 

 good soil, at moderate elevations, and bears within the year. 

 The races are carefully dug up, placed in boiling water for a 

 few minutes, and then dried in the sun. More often they 

 are carefully cleaned, and the whole of the dark outer skin 

 removed with a knife, and dried after washing, without boiling. 

 The produce of the latter method is known as uncoated, scraped, 

 or white ginger, in contradistinction to the coated, unscraped, 

 or black ginger prepared by the first method. 



Careful selection is required in this plant, to pick out the 

 races giving the largest return, and the best flavoured ginger. 



Vanilla. This plant (Vanilla planifolia) is wild in Mexico, 

 and the Aztecs were found to be using it to flavour chocolate 

 at the date of the Spanish conquest. It is a climbing orchid, 

 and the flavour is found in the ripe pods. It is usually culti- 

 vated under small trees, e.g. physic nuts (Jatropha Curcas) up 

 which it climbs, and bamboos are placed across between the 

 trees at a height of about six feet, upon which the orchids are 

 then trained. The flowers require to be artificially fertilised, 

 and the pods, when ripe, are gathered, placed for half a minute 

 in hot, nearly boiling water, and then exposed to the sun, being 

 rolled up tightly to ferment every night until dry. When 

 brown and pliable they are ready, and are then straightened 

 out and tied together in bundles. 



Vanilla is cultivated in a great many tropical countries, 

 but the great overproduction and the competition of artificial 

 vanillin (the substance upon which the flavour depends) have 

 reduced it to a low level of prosperity. 



