Shaun replied to jwermont:

>> I make ginger tea by boiling peeled, cut-up fresh ginger in water for
>> 15 minutes or so. I've wondered if it's really necessary to peel the
>> ginger, since I don't actually eat it, I just strain it when pouring
>> the cup of tea. Does anyone know if there's any reason why one should
>> not make tea from unpeeled fresh ginger?
>
> Providing it is clean no problem (I've juiced whole fresh ginger root and
> used the juice in drinks plenty of time with no ill effects... unless you
> count not getting tired until the late-early hours of the morning as an
> ill-effect, that is, but that happens to me with lots of fresh ginger
> regardless of skin or no skin), and it may/quite likely be even more
> nutritious, since a lot of root veg. are purported to have a decent amount
> of certain of their nutrients in and just under the skin - could be true
> of ginger also.

In her excellent _China Moon_ cookbook, Barbara Tropp comes across as
*extremely* obsessive about quality and cleanliness, which made the
following passage funny:

| I confess to never peeling ginger in the days before China Moon. In the
| privacy of my own home kitchen, I shook my fist at Chinese tradition (and
| at my Jewish forbears who washed even the bottom of their pots three
| times) and said, "Why bother?" It wasn't dirty, the skin of properly
| rock-hard ginger is paper-thin and innocuous, and I hadn't died yet from
| eating it. I was a rebel, and proud of it.
|
| Life at China Moon humbled me. My Chinese-Vietnamese prep staff was
| adamant that the ginger be peeled. Amy, our Chinese-American pastry chef,
| was horrified that we'd use "dirty ginger." (She is my grandmother
| incarnate.) The sous-chef muttered in my ear that we could use the ginger
| peel for seasoning stock and the task of peeling it would keep the
| dishwashers busy. What was a girl to do, pitted against the force of
| tradition and the vision of unemployed dishwashers?
|
| So we accumulate buckets of the stuff every day, and it goes to enhance
| the stock and keeps everyone happy. If peeling ginger thrills you, use it
| in this way. Or, make a ginger tea -- cover the peel with boiling water,
| steep and strain the liquid, and add a drizzle of honey to taste.
|
| In the comfort of my own home, I still never peel ginger -- except for
| ginger threads, were the look of a uniformly golden julienne is important.
| For this, I use a very sharp Chinese cleaver with a very thin blade. My
| dishwashers, on the other hand, pare the ginger with a vegetable peeler.
|
| Choose your weapon and choose to peel or not to peel. When I am president,
| I'll have a town meeting on the subject.


....so even the *most* persnickety people have no problem with making tea
from ginger peels. Go ahead.

Bob