We think of ginger now as quite an exotic spice. We buy it fresh to grate into fancy, oriental dishes, but it has of course been around for a long time and has a longer history than most spices known to us today.
Everybody's granny would have had a little pot of dried ginger to put in the biscuits, the gingerbread, the brandy snaps and the parkin.
Anna McNamee talked to Andrew Dalby,a food historian and the author of DangerousTastes: the story of spices about how our forebears quickly discovered how easy ginger root is to transport and over long distances and then replant.
Dangerous Tastes: the story of spices, by Andrew Dalby, British Museum Press ISBN: 071412771X
