Hです。
今回は、当院の院内英語教育セクションで発行している会報にY先生がエッセイを寄稿されましたので、ご本人の許可をいただいて掲載いたします。 みなさんも自家製ジンジャーエールを楽しんでみてはいかがでしょうか? 定期開催している生薬勉強会の様子も書かれています。
※個人名はイニシャルで表記しました。
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Homemade ginger ale
A kampo department has had a monthly crude drug study session for a long time (except August and December. ) I don’t know when it started but it has continued since I came here nearly sixteen years ago. Before the Corona World it took place at the waiting room for the outpatient of Kampo. At each session we usually study two or three crude drugs. A representative of the crude drug companies gives a lecture. It is standard information of crude drugs such as origin, nature, efficacy, and production area and so on. Two of our members also make presentations. The members consist of kampo doctors and pharmacists from AIH and Ain pharmacy. When it is my turn, which is about twice a year, I try to add interesting information, topics or miscellaneous knowledge. Some crude drugs are common foods or spices, such as brown rice, wheat, red beans, jujube, licorice, species of Sichuan pepper, cinnamon and perilla. Ms. K who had worked at Ain pharmacy delivered mashed sweet potatoes with sweetened chestnuts at the meeting whose theme was gardenia. It was good. Gardenia is used to make foods yellow, such as yellow pickled radish, kurikinton. Someone gave us manjyu or rice cakes with red bean paste and mugwort when the topic was mugwort. Ms. M made some moxa from mugwort. Moxa is like cotton burned on skin as a treatment called moxibustion. To make moxa, the surface of mugwort is removed and the remaining white fibers are turned into moxa. If my children were kids, it would have been suitable for summer vacation homework in elementary school. After every July meeting we had a summer festival party at a tavern. It was fun and I felt camaraderie. Since COVID 19 appeared, the sessions have become Zoom meetings. But thanks to this, some people all around Japan have been able to attend. This May meeting, the themes are ginger and magnolia bark. New face, Dr. N chose magnolia bark so my responsibility was ginger. In Kampo medicine, we use two type of ginger, dried ginger and steamed and dried ginger. In general dried ginger treats nausea or vomiting while steamed and dried ginger treats coldness.
Preparing for the meeting, I decided to make homemade ginger ale. Firstly R and I went to a very big Trial that opened in Nakama city last April and bought a small pack of fresh ginger. It was only 154 yen.
Next I checked how to make the syrup by cookpad.
How to make homemade ginger ale
1: wash and peel the fresh ginger.
2: measure 100g of the peeled ginger skin.
3: measure 200g of granulated sugar and 200ml of water
4: boil sugar and water in a pan and make syrup
5: cut ginger into 2mm slices
6: add sliced ginger into the pan
7: cook over low heat for 15 minutes
8: add 1 tablespoon of honey and 1 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice
9: pack the mixture in a pre-boiled glass jar
10: mix ginger syrup and soda
I brought the jar of syrup and keep it in the fridge at kampo department and bought 1 liter of Wilkinson soda at Lawson. One weekday afternoon, I served homemade ginger ale to the kampo staff. Dr. I told me it was good. Nurse I said to me, “It made me hot and a little wet on my forehead.” She was right. Ginger is useful to treat coldness. The crude drug session on May 26th was successfully finished.