The Saffron Mystique

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Unreasonable saffron pricing and other abuses can usually be linked to middlemen. So-called Italian saffron sold in the United States, for example, is no such thing.

I opened my e-mail one day in 1998 to learn that an American was looking for 900,000 saffron corms to plant in Zimbabwe. Since then, potential commercial saffron growers in countries as diverse as Belize, Thailand, Chile, South Africa, Malawi, Moldavia, Hungary, and Kenya have contacted me for cultivating and processing information. Since 1985, when I began exploring saffron, I have witnessed a renaissance of global interest in this spice’s cultivation and use.

Saffron comes from the three red stigmas of the saffron crocus bloom, which must be harvested by hand daily during the short, frenzied flowering season.

Enriching art and cuisine

Saffron, the spice and natural dye, has always been available to Americans. The irony is that Americans are so misinformed about saffron that it has been easy for poor-quality and adulterated saffron to be sold here at inflated prices. While such abuses discourage many potential fans from buying and enjoying saffron, they have also provided the impetus for others to grow their own—or seek it from more reputable sources and at more reasonable prices.

Saffron releases its unique aroma, flavor, and color only with special treatment. The stigmas must be harvested by hand daily during the short, frenzied season of the crocus’ bloom. Then they must be dried over slow heat. The dried stigmas are what we know in the kitchen as saffron threads.

In the middle ages, praises were sung to saffron about its rich source of yellow dye. In the city of Mardin, in southern Turkey, the Saffron Monastery’s yellow walls, dyed with saffron, still stand. In Istanbul, I saw a 200-year-old Azerbaijani flat-weave carpet dyed partially with saffron, and it took my breath away.

If you think of saffron as a yellow dye, rather than as the stigmas of the saffron crocus (Crocus sativus), then it is easy to confuse it with calendula, also known as pot marigold (Calendula officinalis), safflower (Carthamus tinctorius), and turmeric (Curcuma longa). All of these plants also produce yellow dyes and have been substituted for saffron in cooking. I have been served bright yellow “saffron” dishes—even in saffron-producing countries—that were absolutely flavorless and didn’t come within a mile of the taste or aroma of genuine saffron.

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