"101 ways to eat ginger". The whole ginger plant is edible. The common use of ginger is the root, which is normally 2 to 3 years old for use as spice. The old ginger root is also durable in storage. In Chinese cooking, there is also the younger ginger root, which is less than a year old. Young ginger root is milder in flavor and is crispy like apple. It is cooked in large quantities like radish or onion. The photo shows how the Japanese eat the ginger. There is no waste, just pull out the whole young plant and cook it whole. The red part of the plant is the transition from root to stem. The part of the plant above the soil is green.