20th

PRESENTER
Hello and welcome to Cooking Capers. And this week we’re looking at that most versatile and aromatic of plants: a fairly recent addition to the list of Australian agricultural produce, but nevertheless, a great favorite today—ginger. And in the studio to tell us all about it is Monica Maxwell.
MONICA
Ginger is one of my personal favorite spices and I’ve got a number of wonderful recipes to share with you later on in the program. So what is ginger? Well, actually it’s a spicy-tasting root with an aromatic flavor; it’s related to the bamboo family and has a hundred different uses in the kitchen. The Chinese have cultivated it for years, particularly to use in medicine, though you are probably more familiar with its culinary uses. But first, let’s take a brief look at its history before we look at how it can be used, because it has a very interesting history. Ginger originated in the southern provinces of China and in India, where it had been used in medicine and food preparation for over 5, 000 years. The early traders who came upon the plant took it to many parts of the world such as Nigeria, the West Indies, Central America, East Africa and even Indonesia.
Ginger became extremely popular because of its exotic, aromatic properties and was highly valued by spice traders in the 17th and 18th centuries because they were able to sell it back in Europe for a very good price. Although Australia is now the largest producer of ginger in the world, it wasn’t grown in Australia until the early 20th century.