Turmeric, “the yellow ginger”

Jiang Huang, the Chinese name for turmeric, reads word for word “the yellow ginger”: a rhizome that resembles ginger’s, from the same botanical family, with a brilliant orange-yellow interior. Turmeric leads three parallel lives, as a medicinal herb, a spice and a dye, and in 2019 China added it to the list of substances that are both food and medicinal herb. Brought from South and South-East Asia along the Persian trade routes, it has Sichuan as its benchmark growing region, whose Chuan Jiang Huang gives smaller rhizomes with thinner skin, richer in curcumin and essential oil. A good rhizome is recognised by its golden yellow cut surface with a waxy sheen; chewed, it stains the saliva bright yellow.

Moving the Blood and the Qi

In traditional Chinese medicine, turmeric is warm, pungent and bitter in flavour, associated with the Liver and the Spleen. The pungent disperses, the bitter descends: two directions in a single substance, hence its versatility. When the Blood no longer circulates freely, tradition says it congeals; the warm pungency of turmeric melts it and sets it moving again. But it does not work only at the level of the Blood: it also gets stuck Qi moving again, felt above the navel and along the sides. Acting on both the Qi and the Blood is its hallmark, and what sets it apart from its close relatives, Yu Jin and E Zhu.

Lifting the blockage, as far as the shoulder and arm

Its most characteristic action concerns what tradition calls Bi, blockage: when Wind, Cold and Dampness lodge in the muscles, tendons and joints, they stop the passage of Qi and Blood. Turmeric dispels Wind-Cold-Dampness from the outside and gets the Qi and Blood moving again from within. It also has a direction: it excels at reaching the limbs, the upper body, the shoulder and the arm. With notopterygium, it forms the upper-body pair. Modern research is taking a particular interest in curcumin, its main compound.