Ginger Baby

Of all the fanciful creations to emerge from the baker’s atelier, none carries the spirit-of-the-season quite like the gingerbread man. The scent arrives to you first: a festive, fabled blend of cinnamon, cloves, and, yes, ginger—but to taste it is to complete the story. Bite into an arm or leg to reveal a hidden life, and the centuries of history behind it . . . The word ‘gingerbread’ whispers of Latin and Old French roots—zingiber, gingebras—its meaning originally a reference to preserved ginger, the spice that would come to define this confection. Yet our tale begins not in snowy, medieval Europe, as one might imagine, but rather, in the more sun-baked climes of the ancient civilizations. The Egyptians, it is said, left rustic, unleavened honey-cakes in the tombs of the Pharaohs, sacred, ceremonial offerings laced with ginger and other spices, and believed to be vested with life-giving powers. Later, in Greece, ginger-flecked honey-cakes were molded into symbolic forms and presented