Galangal is a spice in the Zingiberaceae (ginger) family, which also includes ginger and turmeric. It’s a rhizome, an underground plant stem that expels roots and shoots from the plant's nodes.

According to Vu Lien, a resident of Dien Bien City, galangal sprouts grow year-round, but they’re most abundant in early spring, mid-summer, and early autumn. During these periods, locals gather the ...

It wasn't always the way. As Kassia St Clair, a cultural historian and author of The Secret Lives of Colour, notes, the girl-pink/boy-blue divide didn't set in until the mid-20th Century. An 1893 ...