Larry Hnetka Goes HMmmm

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Buying saffron in Provence, France. This fellow was about to harvest 250,000 crocuses on his estate. He individually picks out the stamens which are then dried and sold as the spice we know as saffron.

This week’s theme is SMALL.

In Provence, France, we stopped in at a saffron farm. In the photo, the owner is measuring out about two grams (2 gram = 0.070 547 924 ounce) of saffron which cost us about $100.

Why were we so willing to buy such an expensive spice?

This farmer was highly recommended as producing some of the best saffron in France.

The week after we were there, he would harvest about 250,000 crocuses by himself. After the harvest frenzy comes the tedious chore of extracting the stigmas from each flower.

A pound of dry saffron requires 50,000 to 75,000 flowers, the equivalent of a football’s field’s area of cultivation.

The average retail price is $1,000/£500/€700 per pound (US$2200/ £1100/ €1550 per kilogram).

A pound comprises between 70,000 and 200,000 threads.

Vivid crimson colouring, slight moistness, elasticity, recent harvest date, and lack of broken-off thread debris are all traits of fresh saffron.

I’ve used a “pinch” of my French saffron but the small air-tight bottle sits in my fridge waiting for me to cook a great big batch of tasty paella.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 10:50:50 PM and is filed under JOURNAL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.