11/16/12: Ginger

Yesterday, I started reading William Gibson's Neuromancer. In the first few pages, it mentioned "preserved ginger." I Noticed this, for some reason.

Minutes later, I opened a package I got in the mail. Inside it, the flap read "Ginger Jar" (it was a repurposed box, turned inside-out for shipping).

This morning, I went to a health store and bought a supplement. Right beside the supplement, was a bottle of "Ginger Wonder" (in a big wall of supplements, the two Just Happening to be side-by-side).

The clincher: a few hours later, over lunch, my mother related a story about ginger -- rather interesting in itself. She had decided to prepare a recipe containing "crystalized ginger," but had never heard of such a thing, and had no idea where to purchase it. Shortly after, however, she'd needed some chili powder, and, despite having several bottles of chili powder, she couldn't find any -- until she went to a forgotten drawer of spices, in which was chili powder ... along with a bottle of crystalized ginger. (As it turns out, my father found a box of random spices some years ago, and put them in this drawer.)

(Well, no, I guess this is the clincher: the "preserved ginger," like that in Neuromancer, is pretty much the same thing as the "crystalized ginger" my mother fretted over. As I understand it, ginger is first "preserved," then processed further, with sugar and such, until it's "crystalized," and the similarity is close enough that the two are called either "preserved" or "crystalized," interchangeably. Like my mom, I had never before heard of either type of ginger, until now, twice within twenty-four hours.)

(Actually, wait -- here's the clincher: this ginger theme comes at a time of extreme digestive problems on my part, for which ginger is, reputedly, rather helpful. I decided to buy some ginger tea, this evening ...)