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Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

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Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#181

Post by araes »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #35
sillywalk wrote: post #11

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.

That is almost exactly the wholesale price of cocaine. $2000-10000 / kg. https://www.drugpolicyfacts.org/node/327

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#182

Post by mrguyorama »

fbdab103 wrote: post #124
computershit wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvotes were for poison hyperbole almost certainly

Poison seems totally fair. Counterfeit tumeric can have high amounts of lead. Lead being one of those chemicals with no safe amount.

We literally have a cinnamon adulteration case going through the US right now. Children were poisoned by applesauce with adulterated cinnamon.

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#183

Post by thewileyone »

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…

On a trip to Spain, I bought a container of saffron in Toledo for USD100 for my mom. Lasted her for years. Tremendous markup along the trade route.

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#184

Post by gnicholas »

vasco wrote: post #130
gnicholas wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Olive oil should be used within a reasonably short time of opening, which makes Costco-sized bottles less practical. We buy honey and vanilla extract from Costco, but we don't use olive oil anywhere near fast enough to justify buying Costco-sized jugs.

My family makes a small batch of olive oil from a couple of big trees we have and have never gotten through what we make that fast, even though we use a lot. What's the problem in taking long to consume it? (Months)

I assume that the olive oil I buy in the store is very old compared to fresh-pressed oil. Similarly, my aunt has an avocado tree, and her fresh-picked avocados stay ripe for weeks, unlike the store-bought kind that have a sweet spot of ~36 hours.

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#185

Post by gnicholas »

pcl wrote: post #137
faizan-ali wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Olive oil somm here (yeah that's a thing!) Olive oil (and all cooking oils in general) are the opposite of wine - once bottled they start degrading and any additional exposure to air, light, heat degrades them further. What degrades specifically? Usually it's the nuanced flavors and health benefits of good extra virgin, it'll usually be fine for cooking but you're losing out on the purposeful decision of using olive…

Olive oil is so much cheaper in bulk. Do you have any tips for how to preserve it? Intuitively, I would assume that re-bottling a large volume into several small bottles (and then keeping the extras sealed and in the dark) would be better than using a larger bottle continuously. Does that hold up to your experience?

If exposure to air is bad, it's possible that re-bottling wouldn't work well. I don't know if bottled olive oil is treated like many other packaged foods and sealed in with an inert(ish) gas, but I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case. I don't know how you could replicate that at home.

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#186

Post by IAmGraydon »

araes wrote: post #181
IAmGraydon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is almost exactly the wholesale price of cocaine. $2000-10000 / kg. https://www.drugpolicyfacts.org/node/327

Yes but we’re talking about retail prices.

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#187

Post by JohnFen »

KerrAvon wrote: post #74
JohnFen wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a weird thing: I don't have any idea what saffron tastes like. Ignoring saffron rice (which to me seems exactly like ordinary rice, but yellow -- which probably means it didn't really have saffron in it?), I've only had dishes that include it (that I knew of) a couple of times in my life. Those dishes had many different flavors going on, so I couldn't tell which of those flavors were saffron. I need to just ge…

Saffron ice cream.

TIL that saffron ice cream is a thing that exists. It's certainly not in any store in my area that I am aware of, so I'm afraid that I can't try it.

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#188

Post by JohnFen »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #113
JohnFen wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a weird thing: I don't have any idea what saffron tastes like. Ignoring saffron rice (which to me seems exactly like ordinary rice, but yellow -- which probably means it didn't really have saffron in it?), I've only had dishes that include it (that I knew of) a couple of times in my life. Those dishes had many different flavors going on, so I couldn't tell which of those flavors were saffron. I need to just ge…

St Lucia’s buns

I've had those, but it didn't clarify anything for me. I think the issue is that I don't know what taste I'm looking for, so I can't pick it out. That's why I think the solution is to try saffron in isolation from other flavors, so there's no question.

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#189

Post by seanmcdirmid »

dotnet00 wrote: post #126
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…

Having lived in Iran for a bit, Saffron was indeed extremely cheap, we used to regularly eat saffron ice cream, and we frequently used it in sweets. I didn't even realize how expensive it was in the rest of the world until later.

There is a wonderful ice cream shop in LA called Saffron and Rose. It is in Little Persia (near UCLA) of course, everyone who visits LA should try it at least once, they have a lot of really cool flavors besides the saffron/rose one, but it is definitely the one to try at least once.

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#190

Post by poulsbohemian »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #146
ghastmaster wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Greek friend who's family goes into the mountains and picks it. There is no market infrastructure in the villages, similar to how venison is expensive at a restaurant, yet poor rural hunters kill and eat it all the time.

I thought the venison thing was because it’s illegal to farm deer (in the US anyway).

I can't speak to deer, but my cousin had an elk farm previously so that was at least legal. Given concerns over wasting disease, I'm not sure if farming deer would be a good or bad idea - as in, do we end up with a concentrated population that might spread the disease faster, or do we save the species by separating it from their wild cousins?
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