tiger tiger tiger for ultimate August, the Roman Emperor’s last day in office, and (by some reckonings) summer’s end, as the tigers are about to be pushed off the scene by autumnally school-going rabbits, in the great cycle of life
Into this seasonal Sturm und Drang sweeps today’s Wayno / Piraro Bizarro, in which we witness the cheering of robots presented with a platter of the coiled metallic snacks they are so fond of:
(#1) The UN Pun Convention of 1962 requires that you groan here (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 4 in this strip — see this Page)
Yes, spring ‘a resilient device, typically a helical metal coil, that can be pressed or pulled but returns to its former shape when released, used chiefly to exert constant tension or absorb movement’ (NOAD), here punning on the spring of spring roll ‘an Asian snack consisting of rice paper filled with minced vegetables and usually meat, rolled into a cylinder and fried’ (NOAD again) — and that spring is in fact the name of the season between winter and summer (just in case you were imagining that spring rolls were so called because they leap, or spring, into your mouth, or because they were historically made along small streams, or springs).
Some notes on spring rolls. A surprisingly big topic. First your typical Chinese spring rolls. From Wikipedia:
Mainland China: Spring rolls are a seasonal food consumed during the spring, and started as a pancake filled with the new season’s spring vegetables, a welcome change from the preserved foods of the long winter months. In Chinese cuisine, spring rolls are savoury rolls with cabbage and other vegetable fillings inside a thinly wrapped cylindrical pastry. They are usually eaten during the Spring Festival in mainland China, hence the name. Meat varieties, particularly pork, are also popular. … They are fully wrapped before being pan-fried or deep-fried.
(#2) From the Cubes N Juliennes recipe site: crispy vegetarian spring rollsNon-fried spring rolls are typically bigger and more savoury. Unlike fried spring rolls, non-fried ones are typically made by filling the wrapping with pre-cooked ingredients. Traditionally, they are a festive food eaten during the Cold Food Day festival and the Tomb Sweeping Day festival in spring to remember and pay respect to ancestors
Then there are Southeast Asian — Thai and Vietnamese especially — fresh spring rolls in rice paper, served with a dipping sauce, Vietnamese nước chấm (made from fish sauce) or a peanut sauce:
(#3) From the Healthy Nibbles recipe site: Vietnamese fresh spring rolls, made with shrimp, vegetables, herbs, and rice noodles wrapped in rice paper, and served with peanut sauce for dipping
Or: you could whip up a mess of metallic spring rolls for your robotic buddies, using ingredients as supplied by a reputable spring company, as here:
(#4) An assortment of replacement springs from the James Spring & Wire Co.
