Saffron: A History Of The World's Most Expensive Spice

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Saffron is a spice cultivated primarily in modern-day Iran and Spain. Loved the world over for its uniquely layered flavor profile described by epicureans as floral, sweet, pungent, metallic, earthy, and grassy; saffron is the most expensive spice in the world and the signature ingredient of food dishes from Spanish paella to Persian tahchin to Kashmiri rice.

Saffron comes from the crocus flower, of which there are at least 75 varieties. If you live in a cold climate, you've likely found petite pink, purple, and white crocus blossoms popping up through the last remnants of snow, a dependable first sign of spring. But there's only one crocus variety that yields saffron, and that is Crocus sativus, or autumn crocus, explains North Carolina State Extension Gardener. Unlike the ornamental garden varieties, each violet-colored saffron crocus flower has three vivid crimson-red stigmas or pistils in the center. These are the thin threads of saffron that, when dried, flavor international cuisine and dye fabrics in bright hues of yellow and orange.

Harvesting saffron from the Crocus sativus plant is a tricky business. For starters, per Gardening Know How, each bulb yields but one flower, and they only come into bloom for a three-week period in the fall. Furthermore, each delicate stigma must be harvested by hand. If you're wondering just how many flowers it takes to get a single kilogram (roughly 2 lbs.) of saffron, the BBC says 150,000! This extensive labor is the real reason saffron is so expensive.

Throughout the Greco-Roman period, saffron was prevalent in both mythology and medicine. Regarding mythology, one famous and unfortunate incident involved Hermes accidentally hitting a young Crocus in the head with a disc during a game of catch. As Crocus lay dying, the story describes how three drops of his blood stained the stigmas of a nearby flower, which became his namesake (via Greek-Islands.us).

By 400 B.C., the father of modern medicine, Hippocrates, was writing about saffron as part of a cure for ulcers (courtesy of the MIT Internet Classics Archive). Erasistratus, Diokles, Dioscorides, and other Greek physicians employed saffron as a treatment for eye infections, ear and toothaches, and cataracts. Meanwhile, over in Rome, some believed it was effective against wine-induced hangovers, so they mixed it into wine as a preventative measure, per FX Medicine. Unfortunately, new research proves there's no cure for a hangover, but we applaud their creativity and wishful thinking.

Cleopatra, who became the Queen of Egypt in 51 B.C., is credited with first exalting saffron as a beauty ritual and perfume. Per National Geographic, she allegedly bathed in mare's milk infused with the spice, especially before engaging in physical intimacy. Zaffrus extrapolates that saffron's vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants would have aided in keeping the beauty's skin smooth, bright, and vital. Since she's considered one of the most beautiful women in the history of time, it's nice to think it may have worked.

Saffron likely made its way from North Africa to the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century A.D., where it took up another permanent residence in Don Quixote's neighborhood of La Mancha, Spain, says Sourced Journeys. The region's propensity for cold winters followed by hot and humid summers lends the perfect climate for the finicky crocus flower. To this day, La Mancha saffron — called Azafrán in Spanish — is considered among the highest quality food commodities in the world. Only the saffron of this specific region is classified as Protected Denomination of Origin (PDO), the same designation reserved for products such as sparkling wine from the Champagne Region of France.

Cellar Tours notes that, as of 2017, one kilo (roughly 2 lbs.) of Azafrán de La Mancha can run upwards of $3,000. But don't worry; a little goes a long way, and most recipes call for just a small amount. To really sink into the wonder of saffron in Spanish cooking, paella is a must for your menu. Try a classic seafood paella recipe to get started. However, if shellfish are a no-go for you, try this version with chicken instead. Cellar Tours recommends grinding saffron threads with a mortar and pestle before cooking to bring out its flavor's full potency.

Oh, how the wealthy loved saffron, and so it showed up on the plates of the upper class mixed into many recipes during the Middle Ages. The flavoring was found in starters, soups, entrées, and desserts. According to the British Museum's culinary blog on how to cook a medieval feast, saffron was front and center at royal banquets, especially during Easter and Christmas.

With instructions like "Do therto salt; whan it is colde, do hit in a vessel; take vyneger & powdour & safroun & do therto," recipes read like poetry. A meal fit for a king might start with mixed pickles followed by cabbage chowder. To serve something similar to your own guests for the holidays, try making some of your favorite pickles and pair them with an old-fashioned cabbage soup.

For a simple main course of "yopened" haddock (most likely meaning cut open and deboned), ground saffron makes an appearance for the upper class alongside white pepper and oil for frying; whereas the less financially solvent would skip both expensive spice and oil, settling instead for butter.

Finally, for dessert, a recipe for creamed custard tart required chefs to beat egg yolks with cream, milk, and sugar, and then "coloure it with Safroun" (all recipes courtesy of the British Museum and "The Medieval Cookbook" by Maggie Black). This modern-day strawberry rhubarb custard is another type of shortcrust tart that may benefit from a few strands of red gold.

There's a narrow swath of Pennsylvania that many of us think of as Amish country, yet culinary historians are more likely to call it the Yellow Belt. That's because, in 1700s colonial America, small-scale Pennsylvania Dutch farmers traveled between their homesteads in Lancaster County and Philadelphia in order to trade goods in support of their simple lives, says USA Today 10 Best. There they met Spaniards at the international markets and returned home with Crocus sativus bulbs. When planted, the bulbs quickly learned to love the Pennsylvania clay soil and humid climate just as much as their distant relatives had across the pond in Cambridge and farther east throughout Spain.

Saveur notes that early 18th century Amish and Mennonite farmers would go on to cultivate so much saffron that they came to be called the Yellow Dutch in jest. By the time the country found itself declaring its independence from Great Britain, the spice that turned everything it touched a golden hue was literally worth its weight in gold.

Pennsylvania Dutch farmers have long been known to add saffron to just about anything that passes through the kitchen. USA Today 10 Best notes that their chicken pot pie soup recipes demand saffron-tinted homemade noodles as a primary ingredient. The Historic Foodie adds that, throughout the 1700 and 1800s, every household in Lancaster grew their own saffron; a stew that lacked its flavoring and distinctive tint was regarded as substandard at best.

Unadulterated saffron is rich red in color, but when it's used to dye fabrics, the resulting hue can be anywhere from a muted mustard to electric orange. According to Pigments Through the Ages, the crocus stigmas are so saturating they can still be detected even when the dye solution has been diluted 200,000 times. Saffron-dyed fabrics have been found wrapped around ancient Egyptian mummies, and the Roman goddess Venus is said to have worn a robe tinted yellow from the spice.

Since saffron has always been difficult and time consuming to harvest and, therefore, only available to the elite for food and medicinal uses, the same went for dyed cloth. For centuries, wearing the yellow color was a clear sign of societal advantage, wealth, and power. Britannica adds that it was also made the official color of monks' robes after the death of the Buddha.

However, many things fall from grace, and what was initially a celebrated hue worn by Chinese emperors, Buddhist monks, and European royalty alike eventually gained a very different reputation, says Pigments Through the Ages. Due mostly to Christianity in the Middle Ages, yellow went from being the color of love to a representation of lust; from there, it could only slip downhill towards anger, jealousy, hate, and contempt. Though saffron-dyed fabrics may have fallen out of style with the upper class over time, the adoration of the spice's flavoring in cuisine has remained constant throughout history.