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Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

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Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#61

Post by Iulioh »

JohnFen wrote: post #49
poulsbohemian wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#62

Post by akavi »

Aloisius wrote: post #2

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 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.

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#63

Post by enlyth »

aagha wrote: post #55
c22 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 us…

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.

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#64

Post by metaphor »

c22 wrote: post #48
poulsbohemian wrote: post #39

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 produ…

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 us…

> 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

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#65

Post by hammock »

hammock wrote: post #50
c22 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 us…

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

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#66

Post by resolutebat »

PreInternet01 wrote: post #7

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…

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

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#67

Post by benced »

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.

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#68

Post by tired_throwaway »

hammock wrote: post #65
hammock wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#70

Post by demondemidi »

alanbernstein wrote: post #69

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.
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