I recently acquired a copy of "Favorite Breads from Rose Lane Farm"
written by Ada Lou Roberts back in 1960. The first thing I noticed
is that she adds a quarter-teaspoon of ground ginger to virtually
all of her yeast bread recipes.

She writes, "I learned about the use of ginger in one of my very
old cook books. The idea appealed to me, I tried it, ther results
were perfect and I have used it ever since."

This prompted me to do a quick online search for information on
ginger and yeast. I came up with this very interesting web page
which describes a do-it-yourself bread enhancer and dough relaxer:
http://www.ellenskitchen.com/recipeb...adbuilder.html

I have not tried this yet. However, I am curious whether the use
of ground ginger is an "old wives' tale" or based upon some well
understood process.

Has anyone heard of this use of ginger? Is anyone using ginger
for this purpose? If it works, why does it work?

Cheers,
The Old Bear