Wild ginger

Wild ginger: what was it used for?

A seasoning and a stomachic through the Midwest. The Pillager Ojibwe, Smith says, called it a potato for sick people, who chewed the root and could then eat anything they desired, and used it in cookery to take the muddy taste from fish and render any meat digestible; the Forest Potawatomi flavoured meat and fish with it and gave it to those who could keep nothing on their stomachs; Densmore’s Chippewa put it in any food as it cooked, as an appetiser, and took it for indigestion. Bigelow, who had seen the root used in the country as a sudorific, satisfied himself that half a drachm of the fresh powder excited neither vomiting nor nausea, and knew “no indigenous article which promises so fairly” as a substitute for ginger; Rafinesque made a cordial of its tincture and syrup, a snuff of the dried leaves, and a wine by fermenting the whole plant, and found the roots sold for Virginia snakeroot.

Wild ginger: what does modern science say?

The genus is under a cloud. Species of Asarum, like Aristolochia, contain aristolochic acid analogues, the compounds behind aristolochic acid nephropathy and cancers of the upper urinary tract; a 2017 study of the medicinally used Chinese species found potentially nephrotoxic aristolactams in nearly every sample, in water as well as alcohol extracts and in every part of the plant, though most extracts did not kill kidney cells at the doses tested. The 2019 review of these toxins names Asarum with Aristolochia as their source, calls the kidney damage and the DNA lesions irreversible, and notes the bans and warnings of the regulators. No study read for this entry measured the Canadian species itself.

Wild ginger: what did the older authorities say?

Jacob Bigelow

The plant “affords a striking exception to the rule, that botanical affinities are capable of indicating the medicinal qualities of vegetables”: it is not the emetic its European relation is, whatever the books copied from Cornutus say. The root tastes between ginger and the Virginia snakeroot; country practitioners spoke to him of it as a warm stimulant and diaphoretic, and “as a substitute for ginger, in common domestic use, I know of no indigenous article which promises so fairly as this.”

C. S. Rafinesque

“Aromatic stimulant and diaphoretic, cordial, emenagogue, subtonic, errhine, &c.; but not properly emetic like the A. europeum.” Useful in cachexia, melancholy, palpitations, low fevers, convalescence, and whooping cough, in small and repeated doses; the dried leaves “make a fine stimulating and cephalic snuff”; and the roots “deserve to be collected more extensively, as an article of trade and exportation; being an excellent substitute for ginger in every instance.”

Huron H. Smith

The sturgeon potato: “The Pillager Ojibwe called this a potato for sick people. They are supposed to chew the root, and then they can eat anything they desire.” In cookery “they claim it takes away any muddy taste from fish, and will render any meat dish digestible by anyone, even if they are sick. The roots are processed in lye water for cookery on a large scale.”

Frances Densmore

“The root of this plant was regarded as an ‘appetizer,’ being put in any food as it was being cooked. It was also used for indigestion.” Carminative and a flavour in the National Formulary.