402 
SPICES 
CHAP. 
roots and earth, is divided into small lots in baskets and 
plunged in the water, where it stays ten or fifteen minutes. 
It is then spread out on a platform to dry. During the 
process the water is occasionally changed [Kew Bulletin). 
According to Kilmer, however, scalding the ginger is 
not practised to any extent in Jamaica. The effect of 
this treatment is to swell the starch and bassorine-like 
gums. He found that by treating the ginger with 
boiling water for an hour the rhizomes are considerably 
swollen, and the water was filled with the aroma of 
ginger. Under the treatment with boiling water the 
skin comes off easily, but if the action is continued the 
starch and fibre are acted on, and the rhizomes dry 
hard and become darker in colour. 
In Khandesh, India, the rhizomes are at first partly 
boiled in a wide-mouthed vessel, then after drying a 
few days in the shade they are steeped in weak lime- 
water, sun dried, and steeped in stronger lime-water, 
and then buried for fermentation. When the fermenta- 
tion is over, the ginger, now called South, is ready for 
market. 
In some of the Indian bazaar ginger the rhizomes are 
roughly washed and then smeared with cow-dung and 
hung up in baskets, or placed on trays, among the rafters, 
where the smoke of the house cures it. This bazaar 
ginger is shrivelled, dirty, and most uninviting looking, 
and is very apt to be destroyed by the boring beetle. 
A writer in the Pharmaceutical Journal suggests that 
the ginger should be brushed first with a hard brush 
till every earthy particle is removed, and steeped for a 
night in a pretty strong solution of lime-water (1 ounce 
of unslacked lime to the gallon), then well rinsed in 
clean water and dried slowly in a brick oven at a 
temperature of 140° to 160°. Ginger prepared thus 
in one of the Sylhet plantations fetched nearly as high 
a price as the best Jamaica ginger. 
In the Punjab, Baden-Powell says that the rhizomes 
are dried by placing them in a basket suspended by a 
rope, and shaking it for two hours a day for three days. 
