Ramin Ganeshram - Saffron A Global History

Edible

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A Global History

REAKTION BOOKS

In memory of my mother

Published by Reaktion Books Ltd
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First published 2020
Copyright Ramin Ganeshram 2020

All rights reserved

Page references in the Photo Acknowledgements and
Index match the printed edition of this book.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

Printed and bound in India by Replika Press Pvt. Ltd

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

eISBN 9781789143294

Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard. Spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon...
Song of Solomon (4:1314)

Saffron the thin, thread-like stigma of the autumn crocus (Crocus sativus) is the worlds most expensive and, some say, prized ingredient. Delicate in flavour with a unique aroma that some liken to fresh hay and others consider sharper and more astringent to the nose, saffron adds unique taste and colour to dishes. Sadly, modern cooks without a cultural association with saffron often steer clear of the spice, put off both by its cost and by an imperfect understanding of its value as a flavouring and colourant.

Whether saffron is a herb or a spice remains a topic of debate among scholars and culinarians, perhaps because its uses are so broad and span every course of cuisine. It may be that more than any other food product, saffron has consistently maintained an elevated worth over the many millennia that it has been harvested, never losing its value as culinary gold and forever entrenching itself in the human imagination.

Saffron crocus (Crocus sativus L.): flowering stem with separate floral segments and corm and a description of the plant and its uses. Coloured line engraving by C. H. Hemerich, c. 1759, after Timothy Sheldrake.

The high cost of saffron arises largely from the fact that it requires harvesting by hand in precisely the right climate conditions. In developed nations, women and children are most often the harvesters of saffron, not only because their labour is the cheapest, but because the precision needed to pluck an intact crocus stigma from the flower is an act suited to smaller hands.

This labour-intensive crop was first harvested as a wild-flower in ancient Greece and has travelled worldwide both as a finished product and as a cultivar. Today, changing climate conditions are opening up new potential environments for the mass production of saffron beyond the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern locales where it is most often grown.

The preciousness of saffron has made it an attractive ingredient for different activities and industries, such as art, medicine, cosmetics and cloth-dyeing. Saffron traces can be found in cave art in Mesopotamia dating back at least 50,000 years, in the wall frescoes of ancient Santorini, in the dyed wrappings of Egyptian mummies and in the saffron-hued robes of Buddhist monks, but its main use has always been culinary. Saffrons high cost has made it the subject of trade wars throughout history, as well as smuggling schemes.

The importance of saffron was made clear to me as a child. In my parents household, saffron was integral to our native cuisine but often as elusive as a unicorn. I grew up in New York City in the 1970s and 80s, when it was still difficult to obtain all the ingredients one needed to make every dish of my mothers Persian heritage and saffron is an essential ingredient in Iranian cuisine.

I would go with my mother to Sahadis and other Middle Eastern markets on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn to get most of the things she needed to prepare her cuisine. But her ever-hopeful enquiries about zereshk (barberries), sohan (a caramelized sugar and nut brittle redolent with saffron) or bastani (saffron-flavoured Persian ice cream) were always met with regretful apologies from the shopkeepers along the Avenue.