31–40 of 193 posts
I read somewhere that Saffron is often deliberately contaminated with lead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrome_orange
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_chromate
These colours help with adulterating turmeric
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.
- "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 t…
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'll stick to tumeric, too.
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.
- "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 t…
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.
Had anyone tried to grow their own saffron? How did it go?
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 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.
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.