Whether you cook fish, meat or vegetables, you need ginger. It is an extremely important cooking spice, and beyond that it has many other qualities. For a sore throat, a few chopped pieces of ginger held in the mouth are a quick home remedy, and ginger tea is very good for health, because ginger contains substances that help boost the body's immunity.

But are you being cheated when you buy this essential item from the shop? You may go to buy ginger and come home with something that only looks like it. Hill roots look so much like ginger that mistaking one for the other is not impossible.

• To tell whether ginger is real, hold it to your nose. Real ginger has a sharp, pungent smell. If it is a hill root instead, it will not have this strong smell.
• Look at the skin before buying, and if necessary peel a little off by hand. The skin of real ginger comes off easily. If the ginger is fake, the skin will be rather harder, and then you should not buy it.
• Are you in the habit of buying clean-looking ginger? Change that habit now. Instead, try to buy ginger with soil on it, or ginger that looks a little unwashed.

Source: Ittefaq. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.