Gan Jiang, the ginger that stays in place

Gan Jiang simply reads “dry ginger”. A popular legend attributes the discovery of ginger to Shennong, the Divine Farmer, who is said to have given it his own clan name, Jiang. The dried ginger of the pharmacopoeia is not obtained from just any rhizome: it comes from a “mother ginger” grown without earthing up, which grows slowly, stays small and compact, and concentrates its pungent compounds more. Its benchmark growing region is in Sichuan, around Qianwei, and in Guizhou; the gingers of the South, smaller and more pungent, are preferred to those of the North, milder and better suited to cooking. A good rhizome is firm and full, with a floury cut surface dotted with yellow oil spots, and a decidedly fiery flavour.

Warming the Middle, rekindling the fire

In traditional Chinese medicine, dried ginger is hot and pungent in flavour. The pungent disperses, the hot warms: together, these two qualities make it a herb that drives out Cold and supports the Yang. It is associated with the Spleen and the Stomach, the Middle Burner that it warms first, as well as with the Lung and the Heart. When the Spleen and the Stomach are cold, tradition says, they no longer transform food and Fluids properly; dried ginger rekindles this fire. It is the reference herb when the Middle is cold, at the heart of Li Zhong Wan, the formula that defines it.

Fresh, dried or roasted: three gingers

Tradition distinguishes three gingers by a famous saying: the fresh moves and does not stay in place, the dried can move and stay in place, the roasted stays in place and does not move. The more the rhizome is dried, the more its warmth concentrates and settles: fresh ginger, warm, heads for the surface, while dried ginger warms the Middle and the Lung deeply, warming their cold Fluids, and helps bring back the Yang. With licorice, it illustrates the adage “pungent and sweet combined generate Yang”.