Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice | Hacker News Reader

Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

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158 pointsbookofjoe183 comments

Here's what I don't get... so here in the US, saffron is generally speaking, extremely expensive and rationed carefully by cooks. Meanwhile, I watch these cooking videos on YouTube and people in villages in places like Azerbaijan are casually throwing the equivalent of $10,000 worth of saffron into their tea. Granted, I understand places like Iran (spoiler alert: not the best relationship with the US) are major producers, so maybe it is cheaper in that part of the world, BUT it almost by definition is a scarce resource. I do find myself wondering if trade issues / foreign relations are a factor in the cost.

I'm not saying I don't believe you, but how credible are these cooking videos? $10000 of saffron could provide enough flavour for easily 6 months worth of tea.

I’m just saying - you watch these people pull out some giant jar that is more saffron than I’ve ever seen in my life and they use it like it’s no big deal. Meanwhile I’m pulling out individual threads with tweezers because the cost is so high

The west isn't that rich anymore - I think it's mostly an artifact from only taking western things into account. The numbers would look very different if the methods weren't biased.

Yes, it's also a difference in values and culture, we are fools to think that Azerbaidjan would desperately need expensive weapons in their recent conflict against Armenia, when in reality they'd always prefer a dozen saffron tea cups over a thousand mortar shells to shoot towards the Nagorno-Karabakh.

A $20k per year tea budget also seems incredibly high!

When I go to Safeway I can find a handful of saffron threads suspended in a small glass jar for about $23, or I can find a similar thing for $30 at a fancier grocer. Meanwhile, if I go to the nearby independent indian grocery store I can get a cigarette-pack-sized box of the stuff for about ten bucks. While it's definitely not the cheapest spice I don't feel bad about liberally using it in my chai recipe and a box usually lasts me a couple months.

Could it be fake, adulterated or poisonous somehow?

BS to downvote me for this comment. Cheap olive oil is counterfeit. Cheap milk, honey and coffee are adulterated with fillers. Cheap tumeric is colored with lead oxide

I can buy some of your claims, but how do you adulterate a coffee bean?

You add fillers to the ground product.

Coffee beans are bin-sorted in a way where the good coffee gets better, and the lesser coffee gets worse.

The most-shapely and consistent beans go to the more-premium lines.

The small, underdeveloped, or misshapen beans (called "clinkers") go to the cheaper lines, along with the other defects. And so does the chaff from the coffee hulls, which is rolled up into weird little balls and thrown in too -- which is not done with premium coffees. The unavoidable portion of insect parts is higher in cheap coffee than it is in expensive coffee.

In an ideal world, all of the stuff that is removed from premium coffees would be used as compost or something.

But it is instead included in the lesser coffees, where it is consumed.

Not always. I've done the color test on a lot of cheap spices I get in the middle eastern stores I can go to and they've always passed the tests. Sometimes it's cheaper because you're not paying for it to be portioned into little glass jars and sold as an exotic, rare thing like it is in western european cuisine.

Downvotes were for poison hyperbole almost certainly

Poison seems totally fair. Counterfeit tumeric can have high amounts of lead. Lead being one of those chemicals with no safe amount.

We literally have a cinnamon adulteration case going through the US right now. Children were poisoned by applesauce with adulterated cinnamon.

Cheap olive oil from Costco is not counterfeit. Cheap honey from Costco isn't counterfeit. Cheap vanilla from Costco is...once again, not counterfeit.

Moral: Buy things from Costco.

Olive oil should be used within a reasonably short time of opening, which makes Costco-sized bottles less practical. We buy honey and vanilla extract from Costco, but we don't use olive oil anywhere near fast enough to justify buying Costco-sized jugs.

My family makes a small batch of olive oil from a couple of big trees we have and have never gotten through what we make that fast, even though we use a lot. What's the problem in taking long to consume it? (Months)

I assume that the olive oil I buy in the store is very old compared to fresh-pressed oil. Similarly, my aunt has an avocado tree, and her fresh-picked avocados stay ripe for weeks, unlike the store-bought kind that have a sweet spot of ~36 hours.

Olive oil somm here (yeah that's a thing!)

Olive oil (and all cooking oils in general) are the opposite of wine - once bottled they start degrading and any additional exposure to air, light, heat degrades them further.

What degrades specifically? Usually it's the nuanced flavors and health benefits of good extra virgin, it'll usually be fine for cooking but you're losing out on the purposeful decision of using olive oil over vegetable oils (gross)

Olive oil is so much cheaper in bulk. Do you have any tips for how to preserve it? Intuitively, I would assume that re-bottling a large volume into several small bottles (and then keeping the extras sealed and in the dark) would be better than using a larger bottle continuously. Does that hold up to your experience?

If exposure to air is bad, it's possible that re-bottling wouldn't work well. I don't know if bottled olive oil is treated like many other packaged foods and sealed in with an inert(ish) gas, but I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case. I don't know how you could replicate that at home.

Fill something into a smaller bottle. The stock:

Freeze

No light

Add a little vitamin E. Vit e catches to radicals and therefore prevent oxygenation

I can easily taste the difference between food cooked with olive oil and natural oils as long as it's a relatively mild dish with a limited number of flavors (which is the appropriate use case).

It's so weird to me when people act like neutral oil has no applications. Olive oil can be good without neutral oils having to be bad. They're just good for different things.

Not lead oxide, lead chromate. So you can get all the hexavalent chromium you could ever need. But by "cheap", I think you mean "the absolute dodgiest crap that mostly never even gets exported from Bangladesh".

It's a near certainty that what you're buying at the Indian store is fake.

Check out these two sources and maybe run a test?

https://sadafpack.com/blog/how-can-we-distinguish-original-s...

https://motherwouldknow.com/how-to-identify-real-saffron-avo...

A local restaurant where I live has a dish (chili pepper squid) where they add a generous amount of saffron to it, and I always wondered how they can keep the cost so low.

Now when I looked at the pictures on the website you linked, it definitely looks like the fake stuff.

> https://sadafpack.com/blog/how-can-we-distinguish-original-s...

The contents on the website are a bit.. weird? Good 'ol GPT maybe?

> 3. Distinguishing fake saffron with gasoline Saffron does not dissolve in gasoline. Therefore, by dissolving saffron in gasoline, you can decide if your saffron is original or fake.

This doesn't make sense.

> #first stage;

Put saffron in water. In some cases it will change the color of the water very quickly; but this color change is not worth it, because this fast color change signifies fake saffron.

#second stage;

Put the root in water for a short time. When you remove the root from the water, the original saffron does not lose its color, while if it is fake, it loses its added color completely and does not look the same.

Either someone is poor at communicating in English and using heading styles, or this is some kind of poor quality hallucination.

A personal method I think is effective (especially you are familiar with saffron's smell/taste), is to soak a little of it (as mentioned) for a few hours, and taste it. It should have a slightly sweetish, herbal taste.

you want to buy your saffron from people who don't speak english, trust me

Sure, but I wouldn’t expect such a person to know to use a # for headings either.

First archived version on the wayback machine is from November, 2020: https://web.archive.org/web/20201127234815/https://sadafpack...

Thank you!

When have you seen ChatGPT write English like that?

I think earlier versions (GPT2? 3?) were a bit wonky in the sense that they'd make sentences which appeared grammatically correct but not actually make sense. But I didn't play around with them too much. Anyway, the article was nearly the same in 2020 so it's unlikely to be that.

I'm a bit surprised why being cautious and pointing out suspicious parts warrants downvotes. I'm happy to chat with anyone who thinks so to understand their perspective.

They grow it in Eastern Washington: https://cyrussaffron.com/about-us-1. And it is significantly cheaper than the imported stuff.

Thanks for sharing this!

I’m half Iranian and didn’t grow up with my dad, so I have very little cultural connection except for my love of Persian food.

It’s hard for me to justify buying the little bottles of Saffron at groceries stores given the price and the ratio of product to packaging.

Now I’m going to order from that company and step up my culinary game! Still not cheap but at least it feels like a good deal and I appreciate that it’s not shipped across the world and that it’s available in bulk.

I know the taste of saffron and have never not gotten real saffron at an Indian grocery store, atleast in the eastern United States.

It's almost definitely fake

> Meanwhile, if I go to the nearby independent indian grocery store I can get a cigarette-pack-sized box of the stuff for about ten bucks.

Worth noting that saffron adulteration in India is common enough that the country's Food Safety and Standards Authority disseminates public guidance on how to detect for it at home; see serial numbers 46 and 47 here[1].

[1] https://www.fssai.gov.in/cms/checkadulteration.php

Not saying anything about your case but I see a lot of people confusing Safflower and Saffron and it's not always clearly labeled. They can add a similar color but thats about it. FWIW, I like to keep a little saffron in honey then use that for tea it vs adding threads directly.

I have a Greek friend who's family goes into the mountains and picks it. There is no market infrastructure in the villages, similar to how venison is expensive at a restaurant, yet poor rural hunters kill and eat it all the time.

I suspect you are right here - not dissimilar to how I go to the woods after morels and would never pay the $50/pound that you find in some farmer’s markets

Picking mushrooms wild is, in fairness, hugely time-intensive.

Also a great outdoor activity, so keep doing that. I'm sure you know just the right spots by now. :-)

That's common with foragers. They also pick wild mushrooms which are very expensive in the market.

Greece produces saffron, https://safran.gr/ You can find them in shops, even on airport shops.

I thought the venison thing was because it’s illegal to farm deer (in the US anyway).

I can't speak to deer, but my cousin had an elk farm previously so that was at least legal. Given concerns over wasting disease, I'm not sure if farming deer would be a good or bad idea - as in, do we end up with a concentrated population that might spread the disease faster, or do we save the species by separating it from their wild cousins?

Often complicated, rather than illegal. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/deer-farmin...

While driving through Texas after the total eclipse, my wife and I were reading about the high fences on Texas ranches (deer hunting ranches, possibly with managed breeding), and enjoyed this article on the tradeoffs https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/which-side-of-the-f...

My parents love watching those videos so I know what you're talking about. There's four factors I think.

One, the quality of the saffron makes a big difference in price. Longer deeper red strands are much more expensive than shorter and more yellow strands. I suspect they are not using the most expensive saffron in their teas.

Two, there's a lot of markup purchasing saffron from most retailers, especially here in the US. You can get that amount of saffron for far less than $10,000 if you know someone who has a connect.

Three, as you said the majority of saffron production is from Iran. Some friends I know are getting their saffron from the UAE but I'm pretty sure its being re-exported from Iran.

Four, those videos are ultimately productions. If you compare the earlier videos to the later videos on some of that channel you can tell they've upgraded their digs. They might just be exaggerating for the camera.

No kidding - last time I saw a video they were using better Shun knives than the ones I use in my kitchen. A big step from what they had in their first videos, and kinda neat to see the upgraded life their worldwide platform has given them

There is also a lot of "fake" saffron. Keuringdienst van Waarde (Dutch TV show that analyzes the quality / scams in food) has a whole item on it: https://kro-ncrv.nl/programmas/keuringsdienst-van-waarde/pep...

If you're talking about the Azerbaijan outdoor chef who digs a pit with a backhoe to barbecue a whole cow, that guy is amazing. My dad's an old pitmaster and became obsessed and sends me the guy's videos religiously.

I’m curious ! Can you share the link ?

Thanks in advance

Literally all the search results for "Azerbaijan outdoor chef"

His YT channel is called "Wilderness Cooking" I think.

Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/@WILDERNESSCOOKING/videos

It's not really very wildernessy since most of the time he's just outside his house, but still quite interesting and a good inspirational resource.

That’s actually a different guy that the videos I was thinking, but still represents the same idea.

Some types of saffron are fake I think. I don’t know the difference, but some cooking blogs I’ve read mentioned that “too good to be true” saffron deals always just are.

I think Saffron is cultivated in all over Iranian Plateau which includes Iran Azerbaijan Afghanistan Turkmenistan Kurdish parts of Turkey and Iraq.

Having lived in Iran for a bit, Saffron was indeed extremely cheap, we used to regularly eat saffron ice cream, and we frequently used it in sweets. I didn't even realize how expensive it was in the rest of the world until later.

There is a wonderful ice cream shop in LA called Saffron and Rose. It is in Little Persia (near UCLA) of course, everyone who visits LA should try it at least once, they have a lot of really cool flavors besides the saffron/rose one, but it is definitely the one to try at least once.

There are different types. Real saffron is used sparingly and I doubt anyone is throwing a bunch of it in tea. My friends from Afghanistan would add a thread or two to their kahwah. Before they left they gifted me a massive bag of "saffron". I was a bit confused because it would be equivalent to a lifetime's worth based on how they used it. I think I concluded it might have been part of a different part of the plant or something, but it wasn't the "real" saffron they were using for sure.

In Sweden they sell bucketloads of saffron for basically a euro or two per pack. The equivalent in UK stores would have a 10x markup at least. It seems like an industry that somebody could easily capitalize on, unless there is some trade or monopoly restrictions we don’t know about.

The youtubers you see are most likely using fake saffron which is very popular.

You can probably grow saffron yourself. I live in northern Europe and when its season some of the seed shops here stock live Crocus sativus.

On a trip to Spain, I bought a container of saffron in Toledo for USD100 for my mom. Lasted her for years. Tremendous markup along the trade route.

It may not be real saffron, there have been cases where people sell fake saffron, not sure what they use instead of the real thing but it can happen.

Saffron's expensive by weight; but not per recipe. A teaspoon of the stuff could float away on the breeze, but few recipes call for as much as a teaspoon. A £5.00 box of saffron lasts me about 3 months, and I use the stuff weekly.

I think most people have no idea how to use it efficiently either. Cooking shows and recipes often depict simply adding threads directly to a recipe.

Growing up, I was taught to grind a small amount into a fine powder and mix with a bit of very hot water, which yields an incredibly potent, fragrant, and inexpensive ingredient that can flavor significant quantities of food.

Does grinding help the extraction? I just steep the threads for ten minutes in freshly-boiled water, then strain them (my mother was not a great cook, and I don't think she ever used saffron).

Yes, I grind with raw sugar granules something like 20 threads. And then mix it with a bit of rose water, then add to meat marinade or stew. For other cultures mix it with warmed up butter (fat will transfer flavour even better than rose water) or wine

Grinding with sugar is definitely the way to go. I generally buy a big wheel of Iranian Saffron on eBay or a Persian shop, then grind it all up in a mortar and pestle with some sugar and store it in a spice jar in a dark cupboard. Then when you need it you don't need to be faffing about. If you want to be fancy, save a few whole strands that you can add to rice for decoration, but using whole stamens is really not necessary.

> I generally buy a big wheel of Iranian Saffron on eBay or a Persian shop

Shouldn't this be a dead ringer for the stuff being fake? We don't trade with Iran.

Yes we do.

I think that's just the US, though, right?

UK imported 11 tons of saffron from Iran in 2023 - https://wits.worldbank.org/trade/comtrade/en/country/GBR/yea...

Did you know that not everyone on HN is American? This is such a silly I'm the main character syndrome.

We (Australia) do -

2019: https://wits.worldbank.org/trade/comtrade/en/country/AUS/yea...

2023: https://wits.worldbank.org/trade/comtrade/en/country/AUS/yea...

Your blinkers are showing.

This, as an Italian I often cook rigatoni with zafferano and sausage, which is a variation on the popular saffron risotto from the north.

The way I cook it, for two people, is to put a very small amount (I guess it's around 0.1 grams or so, not much more) in a small espresso cup with a small amount of very hot water.

The saffron quickly dissolves in it, and you can then throw the water with saffron in the pasta, add some grated cheese (generally parmigiano or grana) and the sausages pieces and it's delicious.

The saffron makes a lot of difference.

- "One of the earliest references to saffron dates to 2300 BCE, in The Legend of Sargon of Akkad, a Mesopotamian work that describes the birthplace of the founder of the Akkadian empire as “city of saffron.”"

This doesn't seem right: Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest known Mesopotamian work of fiction and it's a more recent ~2,100 BCE [0].

The historic person Sargon of Assad lived in the 24th/23rd century BCE [1]—are they perhaps confusing his biographical era, with the era when (surviving, extant) poetic epics were written about him? His Wikipedia entry [1] doesn't seem to mention any written works older than 8th century BCE.

edit: I've tracked down [2] what I think is the original source of the "city of saffron" quote. It's from an "autobiography" of Sargon which seems to be a much, much later (7th century BCE?) work of fiction—not a historical autobiography (see the introductory discussion starting page 16).

- "4. As has already been noted, no such city has been located, but its meaning, “a specific azupiru-like spice and medicinal plant, is well known. Note, however, the logogram U.HURSAG would mean ‘Mountain Plant’ in Sumerian, which may be related to Sargon’s supposed origins in the highlands. This herb was also used as a potion to produce abortions, which may lend a double entendre to this so-called place-name."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_of_Akkad

[2] https://archive.org/details/resgestaesargonis/page/39/mode/2... (Joan Goodnick Westenholz, "Legends of the kings of Akkade : The Texts" (1997), page 39, footnote 4)

https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/epsd2/cbd/sux/o0024740.html (Electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary, ePSD2: "azugna [VEGETABLE] (N)")

(footnote: I'll never not be amazed modern web browsers support 4,000-year-old writing systems. Look, it's 𒀭𒄑𒉋𒂵𒎌!)

>This doesn't seem right: Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest known Mesopotamian work of fiction and it's a more recent ~2,100 BCE [0].

Perhaps because The Legend of Sargon of Akkad isn't fiction, it's an autobiography?

Edit: Is this perhaps the autobiography that his Wiki article is referring to under "Birth Legend"?

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/746/the-legend-of-sargo...

Yeah, but, per your link:

- "Both pieces today are sometimes classified as belonging to the genre of Mesopotamian naru literature – the world's first historical fiction – in which a famous figure, usually a king, is featured as the main character in a fictional work."

- "The earliest copy is dated to the 7th century BCE"

Any dates before recorded/written history should be assumed to have a large margin of error, on the order of +/-500 years, especially true for all dates earlier than 1000 BCE. We don't have a precise way of dating. Carbon dating requires longer timescales and the writing substrates used (typically stone) contain minimal traces.

Late third millennium BCE is the era of written history in Mesopotamia. There are documents with dates. There’s some debates about how we might line up their dates with our calendar, but the discrepancies are nowhere near 500 years.

Gilgamesh stories start showing up circa 2100 BCE. The epic proper, a compilation of several of these stories, is newer, dating no earlier than 1300 BCE. And while the Gilgamesh stories that became the epic date nearly to the point where stories started being written down in Mesopotamia, there are plenty of other stories that are as old, if not older. Gilgamesh is just prominent as the most widely-read work of pre-Homeric literature.

Thanks for digging it up. I can shed more light on the meaning of the original word for Saffron. The article mentions Saffron comes from Arabic az-za’faran. That word is the Arabicized version of an older Persian word: Za-paran (Zayesh-paran), which means "causes abortion" (zaa/zayesh --> birth).

The most common source of Saffron in Iran is area in southern Khorasan called Ghohistan (from Kohistan) meaning mountainous.

Both of these facts corroborate the Akkadian sources.

Yeah something tells me there is more to why Iran is a huge producer of Saffron than what the article says:

> Today, most saffron is grown in countries where workers are paid less than their Western European counterparts would need to be. The primary producers are Iran, India, and Greece.

Does that mean Saffron is dangerous for pregnant women?

If the dose is sufficiently large, possibly. In the doses commonly used in the Occident, not likely.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6235659/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02546... https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/1...

In Iran, pregnant women are advised to significantly reduce Saffron consumption. Note that the base level consumption is much higher in that country.

Thanks for those insights. It's fun to follow the the links in the Wiktionary etymology sections: I found myself on the page زعتر (za'atar, the herb) [0,1], which is apparently similar to Akkadian words found written in cuneiform, and possibly descends from them!

[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/زعتر#Etymology

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Za'atar#Etymology

- "However the oldest forms seem to be found in Akkadian 𒌑𒍝𒋼𒊒 (U2.za-te-ru / zateru, ṣateru /, “savory and the Origanum family”) found in lexical lists connected to Akkadian 𒌑𒈛𒈥𒌅 (U2.LUḪ.MAR.TU / šibburratu /, “an aromatic herb”) and Akkadian 𒍝𒄠𒁍𒊒𒊬 (za-am-bu-ruSAR / zambūru /, “thyme”)."

- "Of further curiosity is the possible attestation of the /ʕ/ preserved in cuneiform; it is common for the zero reflex of /ʕ/, to only be detectable in Akkadian by the e-coloring of an adjacent *a. The distance between Arabic and Akkadian and the lack of its presence in their likely intermediaries, possibly suggests a form of further common origin, albeit with a metathesis of /ʕ/ and /t/, and a retention of that form in Arabic, but not so in other Semitic tongues. "

A couple of years ago I trained some ResNets to detect saffron flowers and their stigmas and then simulated the picking process in Blender. One would have to develop a suitable soft gripper and use a precise pick-and-place robotic arm (delta robots are great for this), but IMHO the amount of manual labour during harvest can be solved with today's technology.

What about Oscar? https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/news/saffron-cult...

They've figured out how to detect and cut off the flowers. No solution to picking the threads yet.

I used to work in a spice factory. Unlike everything else, they locked the saffron up separately. There were detailed weight logs for when we hand packed (with tweezers) it into jars. We were told it was worth more by weight than cocaine.

I'm taking the cocaine wasn't locked then...

I would assume the cocaine at a spice factory would be locked up better and in the same manner as it is locked up at a brokerage.

All over the bathroom counter?

It was just in an unlocked dresser.

"Always separate the drugs."

https://youtu.be/b6pTHW46b8k?t=44

It is. My family runs a saffron business in India and we check all our employees every night when they leave.

Saffron ranges from $2 - $10 per gram for retail amounts in different parts of the world and less at wholesale. It’s expensive, but nowhere near the price of cocaine.

So... help me understand why it's on the order of $20-30 (or more) in my grocery store or via well-known spice merchants online?

Just guessing that the price varies hugely depending on where in the world you're buying it. I'd expect it to be cheaper the closer you are to a saffron-producing nation.

A bit like how, if you're used to how cheap avocados are on the US west coast, you can suffer from sticker shock when buying them on the east side.

We do produce it in Italy but still costs like 5-6.000€/kg and sold in less than 1gr packets

Edit:

Seems like the top producer, Iran, does make 160.000 kg/year.

From the list I found online the sum of the next 9 countries is less than 20.000kg

Or gasoline being cheaper closer to the refineries so California is farked on cheap gas

The grocery store relies on the mystique of the thing. The people making those expensive jars probably also seed articles online about it being extremely expensive. Then when the average person goes to the store they look at it and aren't shocked by the ridiculous price because somewhere at the back of their mind they will have read it is worth more than gold. lol. Meanwhile, anyone in the know is buying it by the wheel for quite reasonable amounts, and likely better purity.

Saffron is 94 USD per gram at major Australian grocery stores.

When I went earlier today, this locally-grown product was the only saffron available. https://i.imgur.com/q8z9MBF.jpeg

I have never, ever seen saffron below 5 euros per gram in Europe. Ever. ISO 1 Saffron is no less than 10 euros per gram. If it's less it's not pure and it contains other parts of the flower or worse it has been cut with something.

And that's for basic iranian saffron.

Quality italian/spanish one (strong in crocin content) is at least 30 euros per gram.

Rather expensive 1 gram packets in regular grocery stores in Sweden go for 2.5-5 grams per 10 euros.

At 'oriental' stores you can find good saffron in larger packages at lower price per weight.

Then it's not pure saffron. It just can't be.

Quality 1 saffron at ICA (largest swedish supermarket chain) is 24 euros per gram.

Anything below ISO 1/Quality 1 is cut or low quality.

Ica doesn't sell good quality saffron as far as I know. I got ten 0.5 gram satchels for 100 SEK before 'jul' last year, small paper packets with their own branding placed at the checkout.

Probably more expensive in the 'big' cities.

That is almost exactly the wholesale price of cocaine. $2000-10000 / kg. https://www.drugpolicyfacts.org/node/327

Yes but we’re talking about retail prices.

I love saffron! Not because of its taste (which I kind-of hate) or other properties (like staining, which I definitely hate, or security-theatre-triggering, but more about that below), but mostly due to the rituals around it, and because a friend of mine once got booted off a TV cooking show as a result of using it.

So, visiting the famous (and horrible, but thank you!) Spice Market in Istanbul recently, I just could not resist learning everything I could about saffron (mostly: how to spot the fake stuff -- spoiler: the paint sinks in hot water), plus, of course, taking home some of the real stuff for said friend.

This, on an unplanned detour through Germany on my way back, got me into a bit of trouble. Apparently, the post-9/11 scanners that determine whether your hand-luggage contains anything troublesome, have some of their own issues with saffron...

Why did they get booted for using it?

The reason given on the show was that the celebrity-chef judge did not appreciate the taste.

That didn't (and doesn't) make an awful lot of sense though, since they used the same spice in very similar quantities in another dish the week before, and were praised for that by the same judge.

So, everyone's best guess is that the "reality show" script writers decided it was time for them to go, to give more screen time to more interesting contestants...

It couldn't possibly have been something else about that dish that was different, or simply that they didn't think saffron went well with that one..?

We'll never know but I guess the friend finds more comfort in blaming the "system" than using it as introspection tool. But maybe they're right, as I said, we'll never know.

Safrole is a precursor for MDMA (ecstasy), so Customs might be interested, but I wouldn't have expected TSA-style scanners to pick this up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safrole

Don't think saffron contains any safrole?

The main plant source would be sassafras.

It might just look interesting in the sense of being indistinguishable from a bag of something that is contraband, and so warrant checking out by eyeball.

Note that the US does not trade with Iran, the largest producer of saffron. Undoubtedly, some saffron in the US is Iranian, just ferried via another country for customs reasons but it makes the spice here more expensive than it would be otherwise.

Years ago, I was convinced that saffron's "taste" was more mental than anything else, so I ran a little matched pairs experiment to see if anyone could taste the difference between a rice dish with saffron or one without. No one could.

Admittedly, it was too small of an experiment to be sure, but it just seems like a very expensive food dye to me.

I'll just stick to turmeric.

I believe you diluted it too much

Easy to burn the flavor off

I used saffron mainly for paella and some seafood dishes. The flavor is definitely distinctive although subtle.

Was there no difference in fragrance either? Saffron imparts a very distinct fragrance, more than taste. And that fragrance affects perceived taste. In larger quantities, it has a bitter-ish taste. I use it in rice puddings, greek yogurt (simplest recipe possible - yogurt, sugar, cardamom powder and few threads of saffron. Big difference with and without saffron).

I never noticed a difference in the odor of saffron rice and regular rice. But as I said in a different comment, I take this to mean that I've never had saffron rice that actually had saffron in it.

Generally it's very hard to prove a negative. I can definitely smell the difference in saffron and non-saffron rice dishes. There are plenty of people who can't distinguish between say roses and coffee but the distinction definitely exists.

I find that hard to believe because to me, personally, saffron has such a disgusting taste that I would taste three miles against the wind on any given day of the week.

I'll stick to tumeric, too.

Sorry this is ridiculous. Not all saffron is equal. Iranian saffron is so pungent that just opening a container of it will have folks be able to smell it across the room.

This stuff is usually locked up in Indian/middle eastern supermarkets.

Here's a weird thing: I don't have any idea what saffron tastes like. Ignoring saffron rice (which to me seems exactly like ordinary rice, but yellow -- which probably means it didn't really have saffron in it?), I've only had dishes that include it (that I knew of) a couple of times in my life. Those dishes had many different flavors going on, so I couldn't tell which of those flavors were saffron.

I need to just get some and make a tea or something with it so I know what it tastes like.

Saffron ice cream.

TIL that saffron ice cream is a thing that exists. It's certainly not in any store in my area that I am aware of, so I'm afraid that I can't try it.

St Lucia’s buns

I've had those, but it didn't clarify anything for me. I think the issue is that I don't know what taste I'm looking for, so I can't pick it out. That's why I think the solution is to try saffron in isolation from other flavors, so there's no question.

I found this hard to believe, but confirmation bias is a hell of a drug, so I ran my own quick blinded experiment: 3 cups of hot water, one of which had a small pinch of saffron swirled around in it, one with a 1/4 tsp of turmeric, one plain.

That it was trivial to tell which was which is an understatement. There's a floral sweetness to saffron that is absolutely unmistakable to me.

Turmeric and Saffron are completely different.

Turmeric has an earthy taste

Saffron is mostly fragrance/smell. No idea what it tastes like. We use it in rice dishes or sometimes in my turmeric milk drink.

Edit: In other words, to figure out if something has saffron, you smell it.

> No idea what it tastes like.

Then what's the point of including it in dishes like paella, where any fragrance will be drowned out by all of the other spices and flavors in the dish?

It doesn't get drowned. Spices add both taste and aroma, and saffron has a pretty strong aroma that you can taste the aroma.

Hard to describe, easier to experience..

Saffron has a slightly bitter taste, but unless you're making something like a syrup for gulab jamun which can have a pretty large amount of saffron you're unlikely to use enough to feel it in foodstuffs.

You might have mistaken safflower for saffron, the former is a colouring agent.

Was given a very large quantity of Saffron by some persian friends. It was delicious. We had so much, our son dyed his Converse Sneakers Golden-Yellow with some. I found it impossible to tell the persian source what we'd done with it.

(they gave us a very small, mouse-scale marble saffron grinding mortar and pestle as well. We never found it necessary to grind it up)

Had anyone tried to grow their own saffron? How did it go?

No, but I had thought about planting safflower which is supposed to be a budget alternative. Never went through with it.

Safflower is a much different flavour, is used in Georgian spice mixes and is what bulks up a lot of herbal tea mixes. The first time I bought it, I laughed and said "ha smells like tea bags".

We grow saffron here in N Texas and have for about 3 years now. Last year was our best year for production but that is only because we expanded the number of bulbs that we have planted so our saffron harvest grew in line with that. The first year we ended up with less than a dozen threads total.

It is easy to grow. Just stick the bulb about 1" to 1.5" (25 mm - 40 mm) below the surface and water it in. Keep it moist but not wet so the bulbs don't rot. It will sprout and then produce a nice flower which will have the red stigma or styles that you seek. Each flower will have 3 of them. They pluck easily and take about a day to dry naturally.

Insects will visit the flowers like any other flowers. You have a time-limited window in which to pick them before the flower dries out and it becomes more difficult to separate them from the petals by hand.

The part of saffron growing that makes it expensive is the labor involved in harvesting the red bits which give the distinctive flavor. All of this is done by hand and if you have lots of crocuses to harvest from then you will spend a lot of time gathering them.

We have a couple of 2' x 4' (0.6 X 1.2 m) galvanized steel oval raised garden beds where we grow ours. They are filled with high quality raised bed soil and we do not fertilize our garden except with mulches and compost.

We had a great showing during the hottest part of the summer last year. In total we were able get several grams of saffron from our two raised beds which have between 75 and 200 plants growing in them. I don't really have an accurate count of the number of bulbs we have.

EDIT: This photo shows the saffron beds in our garden. [0] We are still in the process of clearing things this spring. Inside the rings you can see our bulbs, truly a tiny fraction of a metric fuck-tons worth but they have so far yielded several meals worth of flavor. We use about a dozen threads per meal which means that 4 blooms will give you enough for a single meal.

[0] https://postimg.cc/pmJbhZVk

EDIT2: I may have implied that a small operation like ours still takes a lot of time to harvest. That is not accurate at all. Since ours are confined to those two beds and considering that they don't all bloom at once it is a simple process to collect the saffron once the bloom period begins. It takes us a few minutes a day and we spend that time out in the garden anyway managing our other things so it really requires no extra effort to grow and enjoy this spice.

Thanks for this information! I'm always amazed at the types of people who browse HN.

I just added a photo for context. Thanks for reading all that.

Where to buy the bulb ?

We bought from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. [0] They show to be out of stock at the moment. This is probably the best source for rare vegetables, herbs, etc that we have found. Their stuff actually grows too whether you buy a live plant or a package of seeds. Germination rates from seeds we have purchased from BCHS beats similar seeds from other sources like home garden centers all day long.

[0] https://www.rareseeds.com/crocus-saffron-25-bulbs

We have also bought from an online seller through Amazon and had similar results with the bulbs we planted. After our success, several relatives have also bought saffron crocus through BCHS or an Amazon link and will be having their first harvest this growing season. There are some Amazon sellers who still have some available. [1] It will also be pretty widely available in the fall from other heirloom and organic seed and vegetable sources since it is typically planted in fall so it can over-winter outside.

For us it did not matter that we added to our plantings in the spring last year. We had an unusual cold snap that kicked them into gear and the summer was hot and dry. It was great.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/saffron-crocus/s?k=saffron+crocus

They grow reasonably well in the PNW but I’m not so sure about the flavor intensity.

Yes, a couple years ago I started a few beds of saffron at home (zone 7). They're crocus, and bulbs, so I figured why not. I ordered online and planted in the fall and they all flowered that year. I went out after work and picked the saffron by hand, not nearly as difficult as blogs would have you think it is (no, they don't need to "be harvested at mid-morning, when the flower is fully open to the Sun"). Just pinch with your fingers and pluck. I harvested about 1 tablespoon (didn't weigh it), worth maybe 1/3 the cost of the bulbs.

The next year two of my three locations came back with strong leaves and offshoots, but almost nothing flowered. A big disappointment. This year I'll split them up (or maybe split up just one bed) and see what happens. Despite this, I'd encourage anyone in the right climate to give it a shot.

Also, if you're looking for easy expensive spices to grow, try bread (opium) poppy.

I have them in my garden. The do great on the California central coast (with only water from natural rainfall except drought years).

Someone else commented that the claim of having to harvest in early morning is silly-- can confirm; just pick them whenever is convenient, but the flowers do only last a couple/few days. Also, no need to harvest the entire flower, just pull the stigmas with your fingers (it isn't difficult, just time consuming).

I bought some saffron once and made risotto with it, it was ok. Now I have some of the spice leftover, and it's too special and delicate for me to use it for anything, so it just sits in my cabinet.

Boil a pinch in some water and use that water to make rice. Bam. Bonus points if you use basmati rice.

It's good in black tea.

I'll definitely try that.

Saffron ice cream (with coconut milk) is incredible.

The expense of saffron is overblown. You really don't need much for entire dishes. A few strands of saffron can flavor and color a whole pot of rice, enough for six people. A gram of saffron might have dozens of strands!

You have to use it properly - grind it in a mortar/pestle with some hot water, and then use the aromatic water in your cooking. This method gets much more of the flavor out.

Many cultures that grow saffron, they themselves use safflower and lower grades of saffron to add just color, if not flavor - without breaking the bank.

Near the bottom there’s a “Colored line engraving of saffron by C.H. Hemrich”. A bit random, there’s a “Names” section in the top left, where it lists the name in different languages (Arabic, Greek, Latin, Italian, German, French, etc.). Something that caught my attention was that the names with using the latin alphabet are written in different styles. The Latin name “Crocus.” is very clean, less embellished than the rest of the text, the Italian name “Zaffrano” is more cursive-y and at a slant, etc.

The way the different “fonts” are used makes it seem as though the style of writing was used as a way of informing the reader “This is in this language”. Was that common in handwritten documents? I guess that would make sense (maybe that’s where we get the word “italicized”), it’s just nothing I ever considered.

I've spoken to many people who have purchased a tiny jar of saffron but have no idea how to use it, so here's what I consider an excellent starter recipe:

https://wtop.com/lifestyle/2024/01/braised-chicken-with-fenn...

Reprinted from here (https://www.177milkstreet.com/recipes/provencal-braised-chic...) with permission, and avoids the paywall.

This dish also works just as well with fish (it is based on a bouillabaisse, after all). You will definitely taste the saffron!

Reminder that recipes do not enjoy copyright protection.

Expression of a recipe, such as the written instructions, photographs, and other creative elements, may be protected by copyright.

Ingredients list and weights fall outside protection as they are considered facts.

The written instructions almost certainly aren't protected. Explanations and descriptions may be.

I'm surprised after all day nobody mentions paella. Definitely not a starter recipe but still, rather well-known is it not?

I'm equally surprised by the absence of risotto in the mentions!

Paella usually requires a specialized pan to do it properly, which most people might not have, so I thought the bouillabaisse might be easier for people just looking to try saffron out.

A few threads in a soft boiled egg with a pinch of salt is also a great and easy way to experience the flavor.

Just gotta ask, as I didn't see anyone else mention it, cause saffron gets me jacked!!

I've never had it in food, but the tea hits me like MDMA almost! I know I read that it is a precursor to MDMA, and that's maybe why I used that as an example. But it's a genuine antidote of mine.

I've read that saffron tea can be used like an ssri? Any experiences/antidotes? Just curious if anyone uses it like this or if anyone else has noticed these effects.

I don't know the pharmacology, but it is well known that Saffron makes you happy and a bit giggly.

anyone have a saffron chicken recipe they like?

grind saffron in a mortar and pestle, then add it to yogurt with some salt, pepper, and diced onions (maybe some thyme or coriander or other spices if you are feeling fancy). Basically get the yogurt to a nice color and flavor, slightly on the salty side. Then use the yogurt mixture to marinate the chicken, preferably overnight. Cook on a grill or bake and finish with broiling to brown it.

Arroz con Pollo

Ingredients

    3/4 cup dry white wine
    pinch of saffron threads
    4 chicken thighs (we used 2 split chicken breasts cut in half)
    salt and pepper for seasoning chicken
    3 tablespoons olive oil
    1 small onion, diced
    2 cloves garlic, minced
    1- 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes (mostly drained)
    1 bay leaf
    1 1/2 teaspoons salt (or to taste) and 1 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
    2 1/4 cups chicken broth
    1 1/2 cups white rice
    1 cup large green pimento olives

Directions

    Combine wine and saffron in a small bowl. Set aside.
    In a large, heavy-bottom saucepan or dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium heat. Season both sides of the chicken generously with salt and pepper.
    Place chicken pieces, skin side down, in the hot oil. Allow to crispy and fry for 5-7 minutes. Flip over and cook for another 2 minutes. Remove the chicken pieces from the hot pan and place on a clean plate.
    Add onions and garlic to the pan. Cook, stirring, until soft and tender, about 5 minutes.
    Add the partially drained can of tomatoes, bay leaf, salt and pepper, and saffron wine. Allow to simmer, uncovered, until the mixture has reduced by half, about 10 minutes.
    Add the rice to the pot. Add the chicken broth and chicken pieces. Top with olives. Reduce the heat to low, place the lid on the pot, and allow to simmer until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed, about 30-40 minutes.
    Check the rice after 30 minutes to make sure that it is cooking evenly. Add more broth if necessary.
    Once cooked, allow to rest for 10 minutes with the lid on before serving.

I read somewhere that Saffron is often deliberately contaminated with lead.

There’s an orangish red pigment that is made of lead. Most recently there was a turmeric contamination scandal involving lead contamination.

Perhaps Chrome Orange or Lead Chromate?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrome_orange

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_chromate

These colours help with adulterating turmeric

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