440 SPICES 



CHAP. 



869 to 885. In a list of produce from a country he 

 called " Sila " (probably China), he mentions galangal. 

 Edrisi, in 1153, mentions it among the productions of 

 the Far East brought from India and China to Aden, 

 the port then used for Asiatic produce coming to Egypt 

 and Europe. Garcia da Orta says it was unknown to 

 the ancient Greeks, and only imperfectly to the Arabs. 

 He distinguishes between the greater and the lesser 

 galangal, giving the correct Malay name Lancuas 

 (Lank was) to the former. 



Marco Polo mentions it as produced in abundance at 

 Kachanfu (near the Hoang-ho), at Kinsai (Tokien), and 

 Kuelin-fu (Kien-ning-fu) in the same province. It was 

 imported very early into England with pepper and 

 other spices, and is often mentioned in the literature of 

 the Middle Ages. It was then mainly used as the 

 culinary spice. 



In England it was called galingale, a name which 

 has also been applied to the sedge, Cyperus longus. 



Cultivation and Use. The plant seems never to 

 have been cultivated elsewhere than in Southern China. 

 Like all plants of the ginger tribe, it is easily propagated 

 from portions of the rhizome. 



The commercial spice consists of pieces of the rhizome 

 1^ to 3 in. long, rarely f in. through, and commonly 

 much less, brown, cylindric, often branched, and marked 

 with the rings left by the fall of the scale leaves. It is 

 dry and firm, tough and shrivelled, rather paler inside 

 (but never white, or buff colour, as in the greater 

 galangal), with a darker central column. It is aromatic 

 and spicy, somewhat pungent in taste. 



The rhizome contains ^ to \ per cent of volatile oil, 

 an acrid soft resin, an extractive, gum, starch, a fixed 

 oil, and a peculiar crystallisable body, Kaempferid, 

 which is tasteless. The odour is due to the essential oil. 

 This oil is a greenish yellow, slightly viscid liquid of a 

 camphor-like odour. Its only known constituent is 

 Cineol. 



Oil of galangal was manufactured very early, and is 



