[Sca-cooks] Why is saffron a mistake?

[James Prescott]

At 12:05 -0700 2001-05-10, Ruth Frey wrote:
> > It's an in-joke, based on the fact that at least one member of this list
> > dislikes saffron.  But due to the plain text nature of the message, the
> > <sarcasm> tag failed to work.
>
> 	Although saffron *does* show up in some weird places.
> Like in recipes for blancmange.  Exactly how "blanc" is that
> going to be by the time you add saffron?  Doesn't make any
> sense -- either people stopped caring about the color of the
> dish (possibly due to the apparently overwhelming popularity
> of saffron), or else it really was an error.

There are recipes in which the 'blancmange' is deliberately
coloured quite brightly, including parti-coloured presentations.

Like most things, the current meaning of a name can drift in time
away from the original derivation, and the original meaning is
often forgotten (or ignored) by all except philologists.

The _modern_ meaning of blancmange is nothing like the medieval
meaning, though it is usually white.


Thorvald