Spice Sisters

I have a pretty ridiculous spice collection. 

It currently occupies the inside of a two shelf cabinet above my microwave, the top of my microwave, two more shelves of a standing corner wire rack in this weird space near my pantry, and a few more things are tucked into the pantry itself. 

I arrived here with the bulk of my collection. Some things have been added because of their wider availability here. Sea salts are prevalent, for instance. I'm hoarding a parmigiano/basil sea salt, for fear that I'll never see it again. Nothing can truly compare with Sicilian oregano, which is sold dried on its twigs. I finally figured out that 'dragoncello' is the (fancy!) name for tarragon, which is divine in chicken salad. The spice guy I visit at Campo dei Fiori carries a variety of spice blends, but many of them are intended for tourists who think that there is some mythical secret to many Italian sauces and dishes (once you learn the actual limitations placed upon these traditional items, then it is not difficult to stock your pantry with the basics).  

I have had to embellish my collection quite a bit with things I could more often obtain outside of Italy, because some spices here are not prized in the local cuisine. I now have dill obtained from both France and Germany. Paprika from the Netherlands. And generally, any really hot spices such as chili powders have to come from somewhere outside of this country. Italians use actual chilis sometimes, but pretty infrequently. Pandemic cooking has prompted me to branch out in my inclusion of more international foods, so the turmeric I once bought on a whim now has a use in my kitchen. Friends have 'muled' spices to us, too. 

When I am reunited with my favorite container for my spices (an old wooden first aid cabinet we call Spice Aid), I fear that I will have to somehow cull my collection. 

I am attached to my green, white, pink, black and Szechuan peppercorns.  I enjoy having the option to use ancho, guajillo and hot Mexican chili powders. 

I can even sprinkle saffron in a recipe that calls for it. 

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 Several years ago, I was teaching an interdisciplinary course on spirituality and art at the women's university that has employed me for over 25 years. And in that course was a young women from Afghanistan. One of two guest students on our campus, she was participating in the program sponsored by the Clinton Foundation to educate women from both Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

She was exactly the type of student you might expect in a case like this: slightly older than traditional college age, yet youthful in her innocence. She was extraordinarily respectful towards her teachers. She was quiet, and did not draw attention to herself. When I saw her around campus, she was usually walking alongside the other young woman in the same program. 

She was a delight to have my class, of course, but not because of all of the traits I previously described. She always stopped to speak with me after class. She asked questions about the topics we studied. I inquired about how things were going for her on an American college campus. She exhibited a muted yet steady enthusiasm for a subject I initially thought might be problematic for a Muslim who, on two potential fronts, might not be inclined towards the study of visual art associated with a wide variety of faiths. As it turned out, I never should have been concerned. 

She was there to learn. She was there to soak up anything and everything.

Her goals included majoring in business so that she could return home to help run her family's business. She did not talk about what life was like at home. She did not talk about how the women of her country, prior to 2001, were barred from receiving an education. 

I did not ask.

She did not say. 

Towards the end of the school term, she told me that she was going home for the holiday break. She asked if she could bring anything to me from Afghanistan. 

I asked for saffron. 

While it is principally grown in Iran and Greece, Afghanistan is increasing its production in the 21st century. Saffron is considered to be the most expensive spice in the world, largely due to the particular labor of harvesting it. Put simply, saffron must be harvested by hand. The delicate stamens of the purple crocus sativa flower must be withdrawn via tweezers, and this must be executed within a very brief window of time after the blooms are picked. 

While I don't fully know, I think that there are grades of saffron, with the most expensive, full-strength varieties being sold for high amounts of money and exported around the world. I wasn't asking my Afghani student for that type. I was asking for the saffron that was of lesser value, affordable for the kind of citizen I presumed she was at home. The kind of saffron that could - via a generous pinch - deliver both a rich amber color and a heady fragrance to select dishes in my American kitchen. And, it turned out, even the 'average' saffron that, when one stamen is wetted with water and dragged by a brush across a sketchbook page, would leave a glowing, yellow-orange trail.  

When she returned, she delivered 6 vials of saffron. 

I felt so blessed by her generosity. I said so. She slipped back into the fabric of the campus and its spring term. Every now and then, she and I would wave to each other as we passed. 

A year after that, I wondered aloud in front of a colleague, "Is that student still here?" 

The answer: she withdrew from the program in order to give her sister a chance to participate in it instead. 

I don't know anything about her now.

Tonight, my thoughts return to her, to her countrywomen, to the way that the world is watching as the United States and Nato troops withdraw from the 'endless war' in her country. To an enemy force that the former U.S. president regarded as worthy enough of a 'peace agreement,' the talks for which were conducted without including representatives of the country that had hosted foreign troops for twenty years. News reports from this past Spring tell me that while that force has honored the agreement to not kill Americans, educated and female Afghan citizens are even more frequent targets. 

One outcome of that 'endless war' was the rise in visibility and leadership of women in Afghanistan. I am sobered by the changes unfolding in near-daily media chronicles of both the withdrawal and the simultaneous and rapid occupation of zones of an already beleaguered country. 

I hope that I never pretended to have all the answers for questions in my Spirituality in Art class. I certainly cannot pretend to have answers for this dilemma, this near-certain humanitarian crisis, either. 

All I know is that for a few weeks, I was able to interact with someone who never treated education as an automatic right. She bore her position, so very distanced from home, among a variety of women who never had to question whether they could open and read a book, walk into a classroom, speak authoritatively to a populated room, or wield personal or political power. 

There is no clean or snappy way to end this post. I have no lesson or wisdom to impart. I worry for women in many places. Today, tonight, I worry for certain ones more than for others.