Saffron is an extravagant spice that’s used to taste plenty of dishes, mostly rice. It supplies a distinctly wealthy golden yellow hue that colours dishes cooked with this spice and it is usually used to dye clothes and robes, notably Buddhist monks robes, although it’s hardly ever used for this function these days due to its unbelievable worth on the open market.

A pound of high quality saffron can simply fetch costs past $5000 for the very best high quality. It’s the gold of spices and isn’t simply obtained. This spice comes from the stigmas of the flower Crocus Sativus. Solely 3 stigmas are produced per plant they usually should be harvested inside two weeks of showing. It takes a soccer discipline sized quantity of land to supply one pound of this uncommon spice. To reap sufficient stigmas of this plant staff should be employed on 24 hour rotating shifts to have the ability to produce sufficient of the spice within the quick window of time that’s may be harvested. Chemically this spice has over 150 aroma inflicting compounds although 10% of its mass comprises alpha-crocin which the carotenoid pigment that give the spice its colour that’s simply imparted to rice and different dishes. Little or no is required to make a colourful rice dish, however the spice have to be protected against mild and oxidizing brokers akin to air to protect its taste.

This extravagant spice has been cultivated for over 3,000 years and is talked about in an awesome number of botanical references from the previous and even the Hebrew bible, the Talmud. It has traditionally been used to deal with sickness, as a pigment and has been used for incense. Traces of untamed saffron pigment have been present in prehistoric depictions believed to be almost 50,000 years previous. Alexander the Nice used this spice in therapeutic baths copied from Persian baths that ultimately impressed Greek baths of the time.

The flavour of saffron is grassy, virtually hay-like and is paying homage to honey to some. It’s most generally utilized in Persian impressed dishes present in Iran, Turkey, Arab and central Asia. Safflower is usually used as an affordable substitute to the true factor, although it doesn’t style the identical. As a result of issue in harvesting this spice, solely 300 tons are produced yearly from temperate areas, most of them close to the Mediterranean and historic Persia. Iran is the most important producer of this spice harvesting roughly 90% of all saffron produced on the earth.