[update] Mungo

I am making wonderfully, quick progress getting the armature covered and the paste in place. I have started putting the colored bits on the roughed sugar. The tail portion went on like a dream. The horse is proving slightly more problematic. But I have analogies, pictures and squirrel nuts to help make the horse look like a horse (I am so not a horse person). The sugar is starting to get heavy and I am going to need to get creative putting him into the armature.  Documentation plods along.

Now all I need is for the weather to cooperate and the sugar to dry. Pictures posted here.

[recipe] Whole Ginger

I ordered some dried whole ginger. Kinda strange stuff actually.  It has a really, really great aroma. It's not as bright as fresh ginger and not as sharp as dried ground ginger.  It is rather mellow, like a fine aged wine. And hard.  Rock hard.

So now that I have it, I am left to ponder what is going on in the recipe:
"Then take Ginger, pare it and beat it very small and serce it"

I am suppose to take Ginger, pare it, grind it and sift it.   So the ginger if it is meant to be pared and ground, we have to be talking about whole ginger. The recipe is from England, which is a long way from China, so it must be talking about dried.  In looking at the dried whole ginger, there is no way that I am going to be able to pare it. Well not easily any way. And since I am suppose to sift it, it still probably wants to be dried and not re-hydrated.

Should I attempt to pare dried stuff or just grind it whole as is? Thoughts?