Cooking Hazards

I was cooking some Japanese instant noodles at 1 in the morning just now when I scalded my finger. Hurt like hell for a while, but more interestingly, the skin at the inflamed part of my finger turned a pretty white colour after a few minutes. Ooooo.......

Putting my analytical mind to the test, I tried to figure out why my finger turned white. Several reasonings popped into my head:

• My finger was part chameleon
• My finger was part heat-sensitive chameleon
  
• I'm a cha- (SM: "**** you.")
• The heat accelerated the aging of my red blood cells until they became old and white
• The heat burned my red corpuscles away, leaving the white blood cells (which then multiplied disproportionately), simultaneously sealing the skin area off from further entry of red blood cells
• My finger went white in terror
• Red + Heat = White

Sadly, a search on Google proved all my postulations to be unfounded. The white patch is either a scab or plaque of dead skin, or a very flat blister. Shit.

Brian