Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice • Hacker News Board

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#191

Post by speedylight » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 9:01 AM UTC

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…

It may not be real saffron, there have been cases where people sell fake saffron, not sure what they use instead of the real thing but it can happen.

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#192

Post by kbutler » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 2:39 PM UTC

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).

Often complicated, rather than illegal. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/deer-farmin...

While driving through Texas after the total eclipse, my wife and I were reading about the high fences on Texas ranches (deer hunting ranches, possibly with managed breeding), and enjoyed this article on the tradeoffs https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/which-side-of-the-f...

Re: Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice

#193

Post by fyt2024 » Sun, Apr 14, 2024, 10:35 AM UTC

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?

Fill something into a smaller bottle. The stock:

Freeze

No light

Add a little vitamin E. Vit e catches to radicals and therefore prevent oxygenation