This article is adapted from the April 16, 2025, edition of Gastro Obscura’s Favorite Things newsletter. You can sign up here. You might be surprised to learn that the edible portion of ginger is not technically a root. It’s a rhizome or “rootstalk,” a modified section of a plant stem that grows laterally underground, sending shoots above and roots below. And common ginger (Zingiber officinale) just might have humanity’s most-beloved rhizome (although its cousin turmeric is a close runner-up). I come from an Italian-American family, and my early exposure to…
