Just a question of Saffron...

[Lugh]

I was reading something and I made an assumption based on personal knowledge, and it seems the author made another assumption based also on personal knowledge... therefore I would like to know.... what color do you think Saffron is?

[sumbloke]

I answered this but it was difficult. I mean, yellow is definitely what first comes to mind but then so do red - for the stamens themselves, and purple - for the crocus itself. So I voted but...that's my real answer I think of three colours.

[TheZot]

I voted yellow, but I'll admit the first thing that comes to mind when I hear "saffron" is a flavor, not a color...

[Dio]

yellow yellow yellow!~~~~~~~~

 

 

mmm mellow yellow.

[Aeroplane]

Red, it definitely comes red as a powder.

I havent had it that often (like maybe twice ) as its horribly expensive and the flavour can be duplicated or bettered using other spices.

[Bao]

red red red!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[reapersharvest]

I actually didn't know what color it was until I was with my dad and found a place in the village where you could get it for cheap. He loves cooking and made saffron rice that was good, but I didn't see where the magic of the elusive and expensive saffron came from. I guess it's like caviar, where beluga is the more expensive variety accepted by the mainstream as supreme, but sevruga is in fact preferred by many and is cheaper.

[Aeroplane]

Well, i used my Google-fu to look it up; http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=...ron&sa=N&tab=wi

 

Seems predominately red. How have all you yellow people bought it?

[Trebs]

Saffron typically colors rice or other dishes a very distinctive yellow - "Saffron Yellow" in fact. So yes, while the stamen that you buy in the store is a red, most people I think know saffron as the color of the dish.

 

If you do a search for saffron paint, you'll see results like:

Saffron yellow

 

 

BTW - yes, I have seen "Saffron red" described as a color - but without the color modifier afterwards, I tend to think of yellow when I hear saffron ("she had saffron-colored hair" = blonde).

[AFriendlyFace]

Well at the risk of my ignorance showing, I must say it never occured to me that it might be anything but yellow. I guess I shoulda realized the plant itself might not be yellow, but frankly I hadn't. BTW saffron rice is delicious!

[CoLeYy]

isnt it like a purple??? i chose red

[Caipirinha]

I guess I can join the ranks of the wierd ones. When I hear saffron, I assume you mean the spice, and when I think of saffron being used as a spice, I an image of a big bowl of yellow rice comes to mind. Actually, saffron used just about anyway makes me think of yellow.

 

Except for fabric dye. Fabric dyed with saffron is a shade of orange. I don't know why I know that (okay so maybe I know a little bit more about fashion and textiles than I willingly admit) but I do.

 

I did however vote yellow, considering, like I said, I just assume people mean the spice.

[TheZot]

Except for fabric dye. Fabric dyed with saffron is a shade of orange. I don't know why I know that (okay so maybe I know a little bit more about fashion and textiles than I willingly admit) but I do.

Dyes are weird -- the colors you get out of them depend in part on the underlying texture of the materials you're dying, since there's some optical fun at very small scales. With multi-pigment dyes (that is, dyes that depend on two or more chemicals for their color) you'll see different levels of dye uptake for the component colors depending on the material being dyed. You can also get chemical changes to the dyes as part of the dyeing process that change their colors somewhat, with the changes dependent on the materials being dyed.

 

You can use the same dye on cotton, wool, and silk and get three very distinctly different color fabrics as an end result.

 

-TZ

[glomph]

It's not like there's a wrong answer to a question that begins "What color do you think of . . . ?"

 

"I think of green, because I went to an Indian restaurant with a friend last week, and she had on a stunning green dress," would be a sensible answer, though it has nothing to do with the color of saffron itself.

 

When I listen to an oldies stations, songs will sometimes remind me of the people I associated with when they were popular. The contents of the song have nothing to do with anything about the people.