1) Green Ginger is the undried root of a tropical plant prized for its hot spicy taste and it was being imported into Yorkshire by the fourteenth century, possibly much earlier.
The accounts of the abbot of Selby include money spent in 1397-8 in viridi zinzibere et aliis speciebus . Elsewhere I have noted: 1398 ollis pro viridi gynger, York and 1421 1 olla de grenegynger, York, the former in the will of an apothecary. It was imported from Middelburg in the Low Countries and taken inland via the river Ouse: 1463 1 parva barryl cum grenegyngour, Hull
1535 iij barrelles of grene gynger, Stillingfleet. Its possession seems to have conveyed status, and wills record special items of cutlery for its use, including a spoon in the form of a snail shell: 1434 two silver spoons cum le pyke pro grengynger
1444 also ij forkes for grene ginger of silver, Nottingham
1494 j longum cocliar argenti et deaurati pro grenegynger, York
1537 a long spone for grenegynger, Wighill. The 'Land of Green Ginger’ is on record in Hull as a street name from 1651 but how it came to be so called remains unclear.