Gingerbread Day, Ginger Honey, Organic Ginger & Pink Beer

Last Tuesday (June 5th) was National Gingerbread Day in the USA. I don't know how long it has been going for but it exists to spread the word about this delicious product. There were many US websites featuring gingerbread recipes on the day but one that took my eye in particular was for Auntie May's Ginger Biscuits. You can see the recipe on Arkansas-based KFSM's 5News website. This is one food commemoration day I wouldn't mind seeing here in the UK. And why stop at gingerbread. Let's have a National Ginger Day where we can celebrate ginger beer, ginger ale, ginger tea and countless other ginger-based products.

Digressing for a moment from the world of ginger, Mahalo tells us that in the US 'each and every day of the year has been designated as a holiday for at least one food, and often there are actually multiple food holidays on the same day'. These food holiday or commemoration days are designated by either the US President or the US Senate. Apparently, today (June 10th) Americans are enjoying Herbs & Spices Day, National Iced Tea Day and National Black Cow Day, and tomorrow they can treat themselves on National German Chocolate Cake Day.

Calgary-based Big Rock Brewery produce an interesting beer called Rye & Ginger. It is a Bavarian-style roggenbier (rye beer) containing up to 60% rye malt. To this Big Rock adds some ginger. And Canada's Metro carried an interesting statistic - 75% of Rye & Ginger sales are to women.

Here's something to look out for in the UK. The New Zealand Honey Company has launched its Manuka Honey & Root Ginger in the Morrisons supermarket chain. According to the Otago Daily Times, the ginger honey is available in about 420 branches which, by my calculation, is roughly 92% of the total. I haven't checked yet but I wouldn't be surprised if my local store is one of the few which doesn't stock it. It looks like a very tasty product so if you manage to buy a jar, let us know what you think of it.

An alarming state of affairs has developed in the Canadian federal territory of Nunavut. The Winnipeg Free Press has reported that the local Inuit population is suffering under the strain of sky-high food prices. A protest was organised for yesterday and a Facebook campaign launched to highlight instances of high prices such as a head of cabbage for $20, a small bag of apples for $15 and a case of ginger ale for $82.

Vintage Nation, this summer's biggest vintage event in the UK, was held yesterday at Brighton Racecourse. The event, in the form of a marketplace, was staged to celebrate sixty years of Britain at its best. Sixty years of fashion, food and music. So what better place than this for Crabbie's to set up shop. Actually, Crabbie's Alcoholic Ginger Beer was one of the main sponsors of the event. The brand hosted a 'village green' with games, ginger cupcakes, ginger beer samples and a Crabbie's bar. I didn't go but I would have been interested to hear Crabbie's musical offering - Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer. Mr.B, I am informed, performs chap hop which is hip-hop delivered in a Received Pronunciation (or Queen's English) accent.

I've been reading about the emergence of the Northeast Region (NER) of India as the country's organic ginger hub. Although three years old, the gist of the 'Traditional practices of ginger cultivation in Northeast India' paper from the Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge is, I assume, still valid today. The ginger-producing states in the NER include Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim, and farmers here still practice traditional methods of cultivation which rely on organic inputs. The region, which produces nearly three-quarters of India's total ginger production, benefits by its impressively large range of ginger cultivars. I'm not clear what the determining factors are when it comes to selecting which varieties to grow; it could be micro-climate, disease resistance, cultural, historical or a number of other reasons. Anyway, have a read yourself - it's quite interesting.

Houston's CultureMap has introduced me to the Buffalo Bayou Brewing Company, a brewery committed to experimental beers. And its latest beer seems to epitomise the experimental nature of the brewery. I'm not entirely sure what it is called (Summer, I think) but it is made from Belgian witbier yeast, hibiscus flower, ginger, coriander and orange peel. What sets this beer apart from other unusual beers is that it has a pink colour. Yes, pink! The beer has the catchy tagline "Real Dudes Drink Pink".