“Saffron is much more expensive than cocaine,”

January 24, 2018 8:12 AM

The Secret History of the World's Priciest Spice [National Geographic] “Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world, going for up to $16 per gram—and with good reason. It comes from the dried bright orange-red stigmas of the flower Crocus sativus. But before you go digging up your spring crocus, know that this variety is special because it’s a triploid: it can’t grow in the wild or reproduce without human intervention. The gorgeous purple flower is painstakingly propagated and harvested by hand, and only on the morning it blooms. The more careful the cultivation, the higher the price. Iran produces 85 percent of the world’s saffron, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, thanks to its relatively dry, sunny climate and the agricultural knowledge passed down through generations of farmers. It likely was first discovered in Bronze Age Greece, yet it now grows throughout Europe and Asia.”

• The Spice That Hooked Medieval Nuns [The Atlantic]

“Saffron’s origins are a mystery, with competing claims placing the wild plant’s origins in regions along a wide, semiarid swath from Greece, in the eastern Mediterranean, to Central Asia. Today, the vast majority is still grown in that belt, with Iran leading the world’s production. But in the 1500s and 1600s, the center of the saffron universe briefly shifted from the sun-baked Mediterranean to rainy England. One particular region of England became so internationally famous for its saffron—in fact, each autumn, the entire area was carpeted in purple petals—that the local market town of Chepying Walden changed its name to Saffron Walden. But by the 1800s, England’s saffron fields had vanished entirely. Two hundred years later, a restless geophysicist named David Smale decided to try cultivating English saffron again.”

• This Is What It’s Like to Farm the World’s Most Expensive Spice [Munchies]

“I get down for a closer look at a flower. It has six lilac petals with three yellow stamen at the centre, with three scarlet threads or "stigmas" lolling out between the gaps. I reach out to touch one and a fine red dust comes off onto my fingers, instantly staining them yellow. It's these potent stigma that are picked and carefully dried to make saffron."We plant the corms by hand and then we pick the resulting flowers by hand, but that's not the end of the process like most crops," explains Smale. "We then have to dissect each flower by hand to remove the stigmas. I can pick about a thousand an hour but you can only process about 300 an hour so for each hour you pick, you've got another three hours back in the processing shed." It's a production technique that has remained the same for hundreds of years. "The ancient Greeks were doing it in exactly the same way," Smale adds, as a large bumblebee buzzes around us. The pollen is particularly attractive to bees but also soporific. "Sometimes I find them asleep in the flowers."”

• Consider saffron [The Guardian]

“How would you describe the taste of saffron? It's sweet but bitter. It smells of hay, the ocean, diesel, bonfire embers and well-rotted apples. Its aroma is gentle but overpowering, as delicate as a surgeon and as sharp as a bitch-slap. Although people use turmeric to approximate its colour, it has no substitute flavour, no lemon-to-lime or cod-to-pollock neighbour. It dominates the dishes it appears in but acts as a mere backnote to other ingredients. Nothing in the kitchen is as full of paradox and subtlety as this singularly beautiful, weepingly expensive spice. It's the stigma of a very pretty crocus native to a strip of west Asia. The modern plant is sterile, the hard-won result of cross-breeding and human-led Darwinism. Every year, people have to dig it up, split the bulb-like corms that form part of its root and replant them. The flowers bloom in October, pushing out two or three fragile, wispy stigmas that you can only harvest by hand, and pickers work through the night to catch these at their coy, alluring best.”

• A New Chapter for Saffron [The New York Times]

“For Iranians, there is only one source: Iran. They are convinced that their native “terroir” – that elusive blend of soil, topography, climate and water – is what makes the crocus fields in the Khorasan region in northeastern Iran so special. In Tehran, Fereshteh Farhi and her brother Farhad have kept alive the ritual of packaging and distributing saffron to friends and family every year. The Sheybani family, on their mother’s side, has produced prized saffron on a farm near Birjand in south Khorasan for generations. Every year the Farhis’ mother, Effat Sheybani, would receive a kilogram or two of saffron from the farm. She used a scale with tiny weights to measure it, then packaged it in unadorned sealed plastic bags. The family has a tradition of cutting the pistils as long as possible to retain the pale yellow stem called dashte. The yellow stem adds perfume to a cooked dish while the red pistils give flavor, the family says. Packaging saffron in long red-yellow strands is a traditional way to prove that it has not been tampered with. “They tell you, don’t ever buy saffron that has yellow because it adds weight and nothing else,” said Farideh Farhi, their sister and a scholar of Iran who lives in Hawaii. “But someone I trust told me once that the yellow gives the saffron more scent. I believe that.””

• Saffron – the spice beyond price [The Telegraph]

“David Smale knows the value of saffron all too well. Owing to the warm, dry summer, he has had a good crop somewhere in Essex of Crocus sativus, the flower whose three tiny red, dried stigmas become the spice. You can buy a 0.2g packet of it from Fortnum & Mason for £15, which amounts to £7,500 for 100g. Now that would be some present. This British saffron, however, is unique, and cultivating it takes serious investment. You can buy 30 bulbs of C. sativus for about a tenner (they’re a beautiful blue/mauve and flower in our garden in late August). But the holy writ of the edible, this year’s third edition of Alan Davidson’s Oxford Companion to Food (ed. Tom Jaine), says you need 70,000 flowers for each pound of saffron, which works out at one acre per 10lb. That means that 100g would require 15,400 flowers. Davidson’s calculations are on the generous side: other authorities reckon 100,000 to 250,000 plants per pound of spice, and the stigmas can only be picked by hand. Davidson says there is “a painting from Knossos in Crete of about 1500BC… thought to represent a monkey, trained for the purpose, picking saffron flowers”; if this is indeed what it depicts, he adds wryly, the practice “has not been continued”. ”

• Is saffron worth the expense? Oh, is it ever [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

“I went to my local saffrontarium — which is where they sell saffron, of course — and bought a hit of saffron that cost $500 an ounce. I did not purchase an entire ounce. No one purchases an entire ounce. The bottle I picked up contained a mere 0.03 ounces of the stuff. It cost me a cool $14.99. The good news is that saffron is a very potent spice, and it takes just a small amount to impart its heady, perfumed flavor to any dish. That $14.99 jar is good for several meals. Saffron costs so much because it is so hard to obtain. It comes from the stigma of a certain type of crocus, which only has three threads per flower. No one has figured out a mechanical way to pick the saffron, so it must be harvested by hand — but only in the morning, because the afternoon sun will cause the delicate threads to burn. On top of that, it takes 4,000 flowers to yield a single ounce of saffron. No wonder it’s half as expensive as gold. But is it worth it? Oh, is it ever. I used the delicately intense spice to make four dishes. Two of them were desserts, which is not necessarily what one thinks of when one thinks of saffron. What can I say? I like dessert.”

posted by Fizz (51 comments total)

Had a large container of saffron that I carried with me on a VA to TX "move home trip". It fell out of my arms in the parking garage upon my arrival. I wept. I weep.

Also, saffron ice-cream is gross.
posted by lextex at 8:18 AM on January 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

Cocaine is much less expensive than $16/g now? This might change my plans for the weekend.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 8:19 AM on January 24, 2018 [43 favorites]

Good saffron is flat-out amazing. One of my labmates (from Iran) likes to give it as gifts to people, and good Iranian saffron absolutely blew my mind. I'd liked it before, but it's a night and day comparison between good Iranian saffron and the more commonly available Spanish saffron. Better flavor; almost more honeyed/rich.

I have to disagree with you, lextex, saffron ice cream is amazing, but I can imagine bad saffron ice cream.

About a year ago, I was running low on Iranian saffron and was afraid that trade with Iran would be blocked again, so I may have stocked up... to the tune of about 20g. It certainly wasn't $16/g, more like $50 for what I bought.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 8:42 AM on January 24, 2018 [7 favorites]

A few strands cost $2.50 and mum gave me some for rice. The smell is paradise on earth.
posted by infini at 8:45 AM on January 24, 2018

Some of the articles are a bit dated, so those prices are not current. But it still stands, it's a pricey commodity.
posted by Fizz at 8:48 AM on January 24, 2018

The Portuguese have a version/variant of saffron, "açaflor", from the Azores, which is also nice.
posted by chavenet at 8:50 AM on January 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

it's a night and day comparison between good Iranian saffron and the more commonly available Spanish saffron

Hmm. So it turns out the spice store I shop at seems to only have the Spanish kind. Recommendations on where to get the Iranian stuff?
posted by dnash at 9:10 AM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

One of my great pleasures when I lived in Bangladesh was going over to a friend's house and having saffron tea. No one made it as well as my friend's cook - always perfect.

I was taken aback when I returned to Canada to discover that you can actually grow Crocus sativus here in Ontario (it has a hardiness zone of between 6 to 8, and apparently even as low as 5). I noticed particularly the Old Order Mennonites in the area grew it. I don't think the quality was as good but it certainly was cheaper. The Old Order Mennonites in Lancaster County, PA apparently grow loads of it:

Pennsylvania's Saffron Belt

How Pennsylvania Dutch country became America's saffron capital

Yellow Dutch: The Keepers of Pennsylvania's Saffron Secret

Meet One of the Last Pennsylvania Families Growing American Saffron
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:34 AM on January 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

Now I've got Donovan's "Mellow Yellow" running through my head.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:37 AM on January 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

The most recent episode of the Gastropod Podcast is an entertaining one about saffron, including a visit with David Smale.
posted by moonmilk at 9:39 AM on January 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

One of the best culinary presents I've ever received was a box of saffron from an online friend who was living in Oman at the time (probs a dozen years ago now). I kept the empty box for a while after it was all gone, because it still had the smell.
posted by briank at 10:09 AM on January 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

I've actually bought Iranian saffron via eBay. A quick poke shows the brands I'm familiar with from the labmate who likes to give me saffron, and you should expect to pay ~$20 for about 4g (which is a lot of saffron).

I've got saffron from this brand in my spice drawer right now, and it's lovely stuff.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 10:18 AM on January 24, 2018 [9 favorites]

I love saffron so much that when someone upthread said that saffron ice cream is gross, my first reaction was "that's racist." As a child I would swipe the mortar and pestle my mom would grind it up and soak it in, and just take big huffs of it until I was lightheaded.

Weep for my aunt, who inadvertently sold a refrigerator forgetting that she had thousands of dollars of iranian saffron in a compartment in the freezer. She attempted to contact the family she sold it to, who obviously knew enough about saffron to never, ever return her calls.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 10:28 AM on January 24, 2018 [11 favorites]

Re: saffron ice cream, my first exposure was in London at a fancy Indian restaurant, where the waiter bullied me into having dessert. I figured he was just trying to inflate the check and was annoyed, but when that bowl of saffron-cardamom ice cream arrived it changed my life - and doubled the tip I left him.

OK, Making You Bored For Science, trusting your recommendation I just bought some of that Persian saffron you linked to...
posted by PhineasGage at 10:37 AM on January 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

So saffron is the truffle of spices or is truffle the saffron of tubers?
posted by Beholder at 10:39 AM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

The most recent episode of the Gastropod Podcast

me, a year ago: sure I'll reformat my phone, maybe that'll make it faster

me, right now: THAT'S WHAT THAT PODCAST WAS CALLED
posted by runt at 10:40 AM on January 24, 2018 [11 favorites]

Cool. So what is this cheap “azafran” stuff my Argentinian friends use? I’ve been trying to tell them it’s not saffron.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 10:52 AM on January 24, 2018

It might be safflower, which can recreate the color, but not the smell, of saffron.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 10:57 AM on January 24, 2018

One other ingredient makes it stand out, a mixture called alcaparrado. This is a Spanish favorite made up of equal amounts of green olives, pimentos and capers. You can apparently buy it in a jar at some international markets, but I just went ahead and mixed together equal parts of green olives, pimentos and capers.

Are there supermarkets in the US where Goya alcaparrado isn't on the shelf next to the olives? This does make me want to try saffron instead of Sazon with achiote the next time I make arroz con gandules, though, even if it's not traditional.

I've never bought or used saffron; it's so expensive and I'm not particularly sure what to do with it. Maybe I'll grab the smallest jar from Penzey's with my next order and see how it goes.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:17 AM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

Like uncleozzy, I have never bought or used saffron. (Truffles, either, come to think of it...nor cocaine!)

If I splash out the twenty bucks at Penzey's or EBay or wherever, what's a solid, reliable recipe that I can put it in and learn about the flavor? Rice, maybe?
posted by wenestvedt at 11:46 AM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

Dangit moonmilk, you beat me to it; the Gastropod episode on saffron is not to be missed! One of the more interesting things in that podcast that they talk about how saffron is psychoactive in highish doses, and that there are some legitimate, peer reviewed articles about how saffron is more effective than certain antidepressants (but holy shit so much more expensive).
posted by furnace.heart at 11:49 AM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

A few years ago the NY Times had an article with the five best dishes on earth. One of them was Piti, a stew of lamb or mutton with tomato some versions plums, chick peas and the Armenian version had saffron. The Turkish version has tumeric instead. I had a half ounce of saffron for years. The Piti laid siege to that little jar which now has about three strands, enough for one more pot. I am biding my time.
posted by Oyéah at 11:49 AM on January 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

Saffron rice is super simple to make and will definitely open you up to the flavor.

This looks like a really good starter recipe.
posted by hanov3r at 11:49 AM on January 24, 2018 [8 favorites]

Dang, that rice recipe looks good, hanov3r!
posted by wenestvedt at 11:51 AM on January 24, 2018

Recommendations on where to get the Iranian stuff?

Oh, hello, ECHELON.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:01 PM on January 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

I love saffron, and back home in Sweden we used to cook with it a lot (not just in saffron buns/pastries for Christmas), but I never liked the stuff you can buy here in the US - the strands are hard to work with, and the flavor was never quite right or intense enough.

I NEVER even thought about buying better saffron off the internet!! How did I never think of this? THANK YOU, both me and my kitchen thanks you.
posted by gemmy at 1:33 PM on January 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm looking at some websites including eBay.ca, and it's pretty hard to choose amongst the various advertising as Persian or Iranian saffron. There's no provable certification, and no way of knowing what I'd be spending my money on, in terms of how the ingredient will actually perform, etc. I still have a bit of Spanish saffron and the trouble I had with it was it was either too bland, or suddenly too soapy/harsh; it was quite challenging to use well.
posted by polymodus at 2:05 PM on January 24, 2018

Saffron is an ingredient in Fernet Branca
posted by rivets at 2:06 PM on January 24, 2018

Although not a spice, vanilla prices are seriously soaring.
posted by bz at 2:55 PM on January 24, 2018

I figured he was just trying to inflate the check and was annoyed, but when that bowl of saffron-cardamom ice cream arrived it changed my life - and doubled the tip I left him.

Two words: Saffron. Lassi.
posted by Anita Bath at 3:16 PM on January 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

Well, I just ordered iranian saffron off of ebay. One of the many ways that Metafilter has affected my life.

I'm guessing that me buying some from trader joes is why I do not believe in cooking with saffron.
posted by MysticMCJ at 3:37 PM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

...stigmas...stigmas...stigmas...stigmas...stigmas...stigmas...

But but but surely stigmata?
posted by The Tensor at 3:43 PM on January 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

Saffron may cost more than cocaine, but I have rarely woken up after a weekend to find I'd used all the saffron I'd bought for the next month.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 3:43 PM on January 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

Hey TheWhiteSkull, you have a little smear of yellow above your lip you might want to wipe off...
posted by PhineasGage at 3:49 PM on January 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

Oh...um, must have been the biryani I had for lunch...
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:12 PM on January 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

Sounds a bit like wasabi, which apparently only grows on one peninsula in Japan. (Most of what's sold as wasabi isn't actually wasabi, but common horseradish, which more or less substitutes for it.)
posted by acb at 4:22 PM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

My Iranian grandmother used to say that eating too much saffron made you giggly! I've never found that to be true, so I assume it is a bit of folk wisdom meant to guide children's behavior. AKA don't eat all the saffron, and don't be TOO silly at mealtimes. (It is much kinder than the one about how, if you drop pomegranate on a rug, you will go straight to hell.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 5:54 PM on January 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

The owner of a family-run spice company in Montreal told me that most of the saffron in the world is controlled by the Russian mafia. He was constantly on the phone negotiating with traders from around the world.
posted by wjfitzy at 5:57 PM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

Re: wasabi, I did a little research on it a while back and apparently, it likes a particular temperature range (which it doesn't tolerate being brought outside of well at all), plus it's a semi-aquatic plant, prefers to be in running water of a particular depth, and needs basically full shade. And when you want to use it, I gather the compounds that make it taste like it does break down pretty fast once it's grated, so it loses a lot of it's pungency. This all adds up to not being very good commercially, obvs.

So yeah, It's not as tough as saffron, but like you said, chances are almost everyone who thinks they've had wasabi with their sushi, hasn't.
posted by mrgoat at 6:08 PM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm not exactly sure what saffron tastes like, since I've never been sure that what I was getting in "saffron rice" was actually saffron. I was recently given a pretty good quantity, but precisely because I know how expensive it is, I'm weirdly anxious about using it. So I still don't know.

This post might be enough to convince me to buy some Basmati this weekend and find out.
posted by pykrete jungle at 6:41 PM on January 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

The last time we were in Istanbul we bought 25 grams of Iranian saffron. It is definitely better than the Spanish stuff. We've gone through a fair bit of it but there's a way to go.

We make a marinade for chicken with garlic, chilli, mint and saffron which is amazing. Also, it works beautifully with tomatoes and dried lime as a braising sauce for chicken or lamb. And there's always paella.
posted by the duck by the oboe at 6:54 PM on January 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

I’ve always made risotto Milanese with it, it’s pretty simple but time consuming and delicious enough that it’s impressive to serve to people or perfect to eat alone.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 6:55 PM on January 24, 2018

I’ve never cooked with it but this is making me want to try.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:18 PM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

Ashwagandha: "I was taken aback when I returned to Canada to discover that you can actually grow Crocus sativus here in Ontario"

Regular ornamental Crocuses grow like weeds here in the southern interior of BC; I think I'll try to get a few of these bulbs just for the fun of it.
posted by Mitheral at 7:35 PM on January 24, 2018

I wonder if you can get the Iranian-type corms.

Cocaine is much less expensive than $16/g now? This might change my plans for the weekend.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear

In 1985, a black bear was found dead from cocaine overdose in a forest in Georgia. The bear had eaten 76 pounds of cocaine (worth $15 million) from a duffle bag that dropped from a drug smuggler's plane.

Andrew Miller: "There was probably about a five minute window before he died where he was officially the most dangerous apex predator on any continent."

posted by sebastienbailard at 11:47 PM on January 24, 2018 [12 favorites]

What I'm hearing here is I should actually try growing this crop in the sheltered raised bed 100% compost environment with wire mesh and mouse traps everywhere because it'll be amazing. I guess I'll add it to the Ginger and Tumeric raised and covered bed project. I suspect the same bed effort placed with potatoes will yield better results.

And whomever is selling Saffron Seeds on ebay is a bullshit artist. But I kind of knew that given the white paper by Vermont on growing the product in milkcrates and under cover.

"There was probably about a five minute window before he died where he was officially the most dangerous apex predator on any continent."

And he felt really good about it? Has anyone tried a Grizzly on PCP?
posted by rough ashlar at 5:30 AM on January 25, 2018

Sounds a bit like wasabi, which apparently only grows on one peninsula in Japan.

It seems you need running water and a cool microclimate. Because once you put in horseradish, you can't seem to get rid of it so at one time I was looking into if Wasabi was a viable thing to grow.

Some gents in Washington state visited the areas in Japan and were told a remarkable amount about the growing of the product. They then came back to the rocky cold stream they had and ended up growing a better product. After that, the Japanese growers started STFUing.

Or so the podcast/CBC radio (unknown or I'd point people to it and the web page) said. By the time I went looking for the product it seemed to not exist for sale.

If it only grows in the one spot - be ready to lose it as a crop as the climate changes. But horseradish will be around. Along with mint.
posted by rough ashlar at 5:40 AM on January 25, 2018

Has anyone tried a Grizzly on PCP?

No thanks, I already ate.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:55 AM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

rough ashlar, I think the wasabi producers you're looking for are these folks: Pacific Coast Wasabi
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 9:37 AM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

I use Spanish saffron from time to time, and have never really been overwhelmed. I just got a "mesghal" of the Iranian good stuff on eBay so we'll see how it goes.
posted by slogger at 11:08 AM on January 25, 2018

Well that is pretty well my gardening. I like to grow cool things but I have no illusions I'm going to feed myself out of the garden in any real significant way or much better/cheaper than the farmer's market. So I grow heirloom tomatoes, purple beans, early season peas, assorted peppers, several varieties of mint, heirloom apples, etc. IE: stuff one really can't buy for assorted reasons. If I only got one or two meals out of my entire front flower bed that would be alright too. I like ornamentation that also works for a living.
posted by Mitheral at 7:13 PM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]