Ginger

Fresh ginger keeps about 1 month refrigerated and considerably longer frozen.

Store it unpeeled in the crisper, in a paper bag or loosely wrapped — not sealed in plastic, which traps moisture and produces mold. The skin is a good natural barrier and there is no reason to remove it in advance.

For much longer storage, freeze the whole unpeeled root. Frozen ginger grates beautifully straight from the freezer on a microplane, skin and all, and keeps for months without noticeable quality loss. This is genuinely the best method for anyone who uses ginger occasionally.

A cut piece can be stored cut-side down against a plate or wrapped tightly; it will callous over.

Ginger can also be peeled and kept submerged in vodka or dry sherry in the fridge for months.

Ginger is a rhizome — an underground stem the plant uses to store energy and survive dormancy — which is why it keeps for weeks where a leaf keeps for days. It has a corky protective skin, a dense low-moisture flesh, and antimicrobial compounds of its own.

Those compounds are worth knowing about. Gingerol gives fresh ginger its pungency; when ginger is dried it converts to shogaol, which is spicier, and when cooked it converts to zingerone, which is milder and sweeter. This is why ground, fresh, and cooked ginger taste so different and are not interchangeable.

As with any rhizome, warmth and moisture signal it to grow. Ginger that has begun sprouting green shoots is safe to eat, though it is spending its stored sugars and will become fibrous and less pungent.

The usual failure is dehydration — the root goes light, wrinkled, and hard — or mold where moisture has been trapped against the skin.

Discard ginger that is soft and squishy, has gray or blue-green mold, smells musty rather than sharp, or has flesh that has turned gray-brown and stringy throughout. A dried-out end can simply be cut off and the rest used.