Disturbing Realization That Could Be Instantly Cured If I Weren’t Too Lazy To Just Wiki It
December 5, 2011 26 Comments
I had a creepy thought that sent a chill up my spine at around 1:10 p.m. today: I really have no idea what “saffron” is. If there were a ticking-time-bomb scenario that relied upon me defining “saffron” to a foreign terrorist, ka-BOOM.
I know that sometimes in a rice dish there’s supposedly “saffron”. Like, “rice, with saffron“. What I would not be able to explain is why. Does “saffron” taste like something? What? Why would you add it to rice? What does it look like before you’ve added it? Does it come in a stick, a jar, powder? Can there be too much “saffron”? Not enough? At the risk of embarrassment let me lay it all on the table and state that these are all complete mysteries to me.
In other contexts, like if I were reading Johnny Tremain without a dictionary, I’m pretty sure I’d scan “saffron” as a sort of wax and move on. “Saffron candle” – that sounds like it could be a thing, right? But if I’m being honest with myself I don’t even know if that’s correct either. In any event you can see how this complicates the parsing of what it is for me. Because why would anyone add wax to rice? What sort of person from any walk of life would form the thought, “You know what this rice needs? Some melted wax, mixed in with it.” It’s unimaginable.
So any way you slice it I’ve spent my whole life just sort of glossing over the existence/usage of “saffron” in whatever rice-/wax-related context I’ve encountered it.
Of course, I could just Wiki it. Then I wouldn’t have had to write this blog post at all. You would say that. You’re all against me.
UPDATE: And then (as if the above weren’t confusing enough) there’s the chicks named Saffron. 1) The daughter from Absolutely Fabulous. 2) Someone named (I think?) ‘Saffron Burrows’. I don’t even know what to make of them frankly. Why would anyone, let alone two sets of parents, name their daughter after ‘something ephemeral/tasteless/ill-defined that people claim to add to rice’. But let’s not get me started about that, I should probably focus on learning about the ricey/waxey meanings first.
UPDATE 2: Like, part of me thinks this whole ‘saffron’ thing is just a scam, like buying ‘undercoating’ on a new car. Thought experiment, you’re at a restaurant and you order an item which is claimed by the menu to include rice ‘with saffron’. Then you get it. And it’s (of course) just some rice. Do you send it back for ‘not having enough saffron’? How on earth would you know? What does ‘saffron’ even look like? Admit it, you don’t know, do you? You just like the notion of your rice having ‘saffron’ something on/in (?) it. Such a scam. The whole thing stinks the more I think about it. It stinks like saffron well past its use-by date.
I know exactly what it is, but I’m damned if I’m going to tell YOU!
See?? Against me.
Saffron (full name Louis Saffron) lived in Paris in the early 1800′s. Saffron rice is a short-hand for “Rice a la Saffron”.
At least that’s what I heard.
I’m at a loss for something, and I can’t remember what it is.
Sounds like what YOU need is more saffron.
Saffron is usually used as the spice in yellow rice & chicken (arroz amarillo con pollo). You can also make it with curry instead of saffron. In my opinion, the saffron version just tastes a lot better. Saffron is an obscenely expensive spice that thankfully goes a very long way—it grows only in a few places and it is ridiculously labor intensive to gather.
See, this just sounds made-up. The yellow in Yellow Mexican Chicken & Rice is yellow #5, everyone knows that.
I’m now more convinced than ever that ‘saffron’ started out as a marketing ploy developed in Madison Avenue boardrooms in the 1950s to allow them to raise prices, and things just sort of got out of hand from there.
Saffron is the dried stigma of a variety of crocus flower. About three grow in each crocus, and they have to be picked by hand (the stigmas) and dried. That’s why saffron is so expensive. It’s used in a lot of Middle Eastern and European cuisine. People substitute turmeric (which is a yellow root that is dried and ground up) for saffron, because turmeric is about 1000xs cheaper (or something like that), but the flavor of turmeric really isn’t like the flavor of saffron. People mostly do the turmeric substitution when they’re going for color (yellow) rather than flavor.
Note: there’s another spice that is used mainly as a food coloring in Latin-American cuisine: annato. This gives a deeper, orangey color to food. In Florida the annato plant is also grown as an ornamental.
I know a lot about cooking herbs.
This brings us full circle to the almond milk topic.
Through an excruciatingly difficult process, true saffron is derived, much the way I imagine true almond-milk to be extricated from almonds. Terribly expensive? Yes. Hence the common use of substitutes.. turmeric for saffron, almond flavored milk-styled drinks for true ‘almond milk’.
Almond milk isn’t that difficult to obtain: almonds are ground, placed in water, soaked, and I think cooked as well, and then the gritty solid stuff is filtered out. The resulting liquid is almond milk. A lot of people drink it instead of real milk because they can’t drink real milk but think they need to drink something white and milky looking. Though almond milk is nutritious, it’s got a bunch of whatever that stuff is that is good for you.
This has turned out to be a surprisingly good way to learn about what ‘saffron’ is. If I had gone to Wikipedia I’d probably have gotten bored and only skimmed the article with partial understanding. But now I know what saffron is in great detail (=a sort of yellow #5 dye you can get out of some sort of cactus).
I should do this sort of blog post more often. I’m “crowd-sourcing” the answers to my most pressing questions. Next up: why do women care so much about shoes?
I’m afraid I can’t answer your next question, as I, though female, don’t care so much about shoes, and will only willingly replace them when the originals are about to fall to pieces.
In Breaking Bad, when the killers ride in from mexico, one of the first things they show you is their shoes. They look like snake (or crocodile) skin and have a range of particular elements. They’re obviously expensive and project a certain look.
The answer to your question about women’s shoes is probably the same as the answer to this one: “why didn’t those mexican killers just wear sneakers?”.
It’s funny how important clothes are.
Why, for example, won’t the news-readers wear t-shirts and shorts? Maybe also a hat (one of those side-ways things). Why won’t Obama hold press conferences wearing t-shirt + shorts + sneakers?
We don’t even notice the emphasis we all put on clothes.
In Breaking Bad I just assumed that was because the killers were gay. (Actually, I make it a policy to just assume everyone’s gay, until proven otherwise. It’s just easier.)
But back to the subject at hand. This is the thing: clothes may be important, but not the shoes. Who the hell cares about shoes? Not guys. All I can figure is: other women. That’s who cares about shoes. So basically all these women obsess about their shoes to impress other women? Does that make sense?
Back to Breaking Bad, what you’re saying then is that the killers wore those shoes to impress other guys. As I recall, that didn’t quite work out so well though. The DEA brother-in-law didn’t even seem to notice their fancy shoes when he had the shootout with them.
Ahh but the other people traveling with them sure did!!!
You could argue he shot them because he isn’t that type of shoe-man. Of course these tribes shoot themselves too.. but it’s different. Thing is, you know it wasn’t about whether he admired their shoes or not.
Sure, it’s about status and tribe. And the status is partly to signify that if even your shoes are luxurious, you’re obviously well-off. In that sense, it’s the ultimate grooming. As for Tribe.. Check out your own shoes and clothes and ask yourself: what wouldn’t you wear?
But – and this is more interesting – I’m sure they thought their shoes look brilliant, beautiful.
When it comes to mere tribe/status – there are other ways to signify them. Finding beauty in shoes isn’t the sole preserve of women. And if you crack the code of why those killers love those sorts of shoes, you’ll crack the women-shoes thing wide open!
Moreover, I have come to realize the sight of women wearing boots that have no heels depresses me. I’m all for women delighting in shoes.
Maybe Hank was just jealous of their shoes. Did this subplot of Breaking Bad go over my head? Such a complex show. Layers within layers.
Anyhow, sounds like I have my work cut out for me, but at least I see the framework of a plan developing: 1) watch all the back seasons of Breaking Bad on Netflix tonight, 2) armed with it fresh in my mind, when I go into work tomorrow spontaneously and apropos of nothing chat up any/all female co-workers about their boots and whether they have heels; ask to inspect them to be sure. Does this sound right?
“…the sight of women wearing boots that have no heels depresses me.”
Have you thought of seeing a therapist about this? It’s not normal that something that has nothing to do with you should depress you. Also, you ignore the real possibility that the women in question are wearing flat boots because high-heeled footwear is fucking uncomfortable. Make up your mind, men — do you want your women to be in a good mood because they’re wearing comfortable shoes, or always cranky and bitchy because their sexy stilettos make their feet feel like they’ve been broken in half?
>>…the sight of women wearing boots that have no heels depresses me.”
>Have you thought of seeing a therapist about this?
lol
>It’s not normal that something that has nothing to do with you should depress you
well, skies and clouds are impersonal but they affect my mood too. Have you ever looked at an item of clothing or at an accessory and thought it looks joyful? Some do. And some – flat women’s boots, ones with no heels – look about as joyful and delightful as a damaged tomato or as a deflated balloon. I mean if I’d see someone eating a salad with tired-looking lettuce or walking with a rather deflated baloon, I’d feel the lettuce/balloon looks a little sad. And flat-boots look awfully sad and deprived (in my opinion).
>you ignore the real possibility that the women in question are wearing flat boots because high-heeled footwear is fucking uncomfortable.
I’m willing to accept such boots may be very comfortable. But it’s still an awful thing to do to boots. If a woman wants comfortable shoes, I’d rather see her wear sneakers or one of those soft animal-shaped slippers.
>Make up your mind, men — do you want your women to be in a good mood because they’re wearing comfortable shoes, or always cranky and bitchy because their sexy stilettos make their feet feel like they’ve been broken in half?
The latter, definitely.
After all, it’s not my feet that would feel broken in half. Of course if I had a cranky, bitchy female boss and her behavior would affect me then I might prefer that she wears one of those sad boots.
You can’t go hiking in the woods or walking through the snow in animal slippers or sneakers.
By the way, you know what depresses me? Every single fucking thing men wear: the boring t-shirts, the bland same-color boxy-looking suits, the ridiculous neckties, the shoes the sneakers the trucker hats the baseball caps — all of it. If men must wear dull “man colors” so no one will think they are homosexual can’t they at least wear a decent hat to go with their suits? Why either the bare heads (so I have to look at their boring short hair cuts or lack of hair or worse, the looong strands of hair plasters across the bald tops of their skulls) or the ugly caps? Wear a hat — Sam Spade did and no one thought he was gay.
Lack of decent hats on men depresses me.
Sonic,
Spanish-style yellow rice & chicken is much better than the Mexican variant you’re probably familiar with, partially because saffron flavors it way better than curry or tumeric or yellow #5.
On your question regarding women with shoes, well, here’s the answer from a woman I dated a long time ago who was a clotheshorse.
We have so many shoes because we need shoes that go with each outfit we’ve got. You guys don’t need that because all of your clothes look pretty much all the same.
Reverting back to my own POV
Shoes are a big status thing for women also—they put much greater weight on shoes for estimating the status of another woman (or a man) than we do.
The answer she gave you just begs the question: why do they need so many outfits?
I think your status explanation is getting close to the mark.
I do remember thinking the wife of that dictator .. (was it ceaucescu or someone in south america?) with her thousands of pairs of shoes.. well.. it was the first time I felt there’s something poetic about having so many people struggle for her to have another (and another) pair of shoes in her cupboard (presumably a walk-in kind).
Up until then, I saw nothing fetching about their life and the way they acted.
If Ceaucescu ever got married to Ferdinand Marcos in South America, that’s news to me. But yes, good example.
My mom always made saffron buns. Perhaps a Manx recipe, perhaps an acquired taste. They were yellow with raisins, lovely and delicate.
What sort of shoes did your mother wear those days and what type of shoes do you wear now?
We might figure out a connection between lovely and delicate buns and shoes!
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