Because I'm an enthusiastic cook--"messy" is such an impolite word--I tend to get ingredients on my clothing. The peskiest one to remove--or to try to remove, since it stays there--is turmeric. So I no longer cook with it (although I do use turmeric-containing products). Most recipes that call for turmeric have enough other stuff going on that the turmeric isn't missed, especially since I come from a tradition of eaters of bland food.
Let's see what Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed., says about turmeric.
1 : an Indian perennial herb (Curcuma longa syn. C. domestica) of the ginger family with a large aromatic yellow rhizome.
That's correct. It's sold in the produce stores on Devon, and it looks like miniature, bright yellow ginger roots. I tried it once, and I can't wear that shirt in public any more.
2 : the boiled, dried, and usually ground rhizome of the turmeric plant used as a coloring agent [i.e., a dye], a flavoring, or a stimulant 3 : a yellow to reddish-brown dyestuff obtained from turmeric
I take the order of listing in definition 2 to mean that it's used primarily as a dye and only secondarily as a seasoning. And definition 3 speaks for itself.
Wikipedia tells us, at least as of right now, that "turmeric makes a poor fabric dye as it is not very lightfast (the degree to which a dye resists fading due to light exposure). However, turmeric is commonly used in Indian clothing, such as saris." I don't want to stain my clothes with a fabric dye, even a poor one, that is "however" often used in clothing.
I'm not denying for a moment that turmeric is delicious--I don't really know if it is--or healthy. I'm just getting my yummies and my health elsewhere. Or maybe I could invest in an apron, preferably one with splotches of yellow and brown in the design. Or one that was dyed with turmeric in the first place.
