How to cultivate and store yeast

There is certainly a difference between different yeasts. Different kinds of yeast react differently, are "happy" at different temperature ranges, produce different amounts of gas, live for different amounts of time. In my little world, however, it's better to use a yeast that you use commonly and understand than it is to experiment with a different yeast that may not behave the way you expect.

The thing is "baker's yeast" is a generic term. If it called for rapid rise yeast, and all you had was active dry yeast, I'd say to go out and buy some, or your bread would become flat. Chances are, you have one of those two kinds. They both work in most recipes, but each have their peculiarities, and you need to adjust.

I'd give it a shot, and see how it comes out. If your bread ends up "whacky", then try something else.

From Cookwise, there's a table given from Wright, Bice and Fogelberg's "The Effect of Spices on Yeast Fermentation" from Cereal Chemistry, March 1954. where amount is the grams of the given spice with 2 grams of sugar and 1 gram of yeast in 30 ml of water, and the change in yeast activity is measured in ml of gas increase in 3 hrs. Here's the section for ginger:

Amount     Change in Yeast Activity
------     ------------------------           
0.1        + 87
0.75       +172
1.0        +136
2.0        + 72

Of course, cinnamon shows an even larger increase at the 0.1 gram addition (+103), it just starts hindering at larger increments.

update : and to answer the second part of the question; Cookwise only listed a few additives (cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, dry mustard, nutmeg, and thyme), and they weren't all tested in the same amounts; the only two that were inhibiters were cinnamon in larger amounts, and dry mustard (for which they only had one point). It's possible that there was more in the original article, as the lead-in to the table said "The accompanying table shows the effects of some of these spices".