History's Most Expensive Spice: Saffron

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While I can't say about medieval recipes, in modern Persian cooking, saffron for color is always added during the cooking process and then a substantial quantity is poured over at the end for the actual flavor. Marinating for a longer period can also add a more substantial flavor that can stand up to things like grilling without requiring the extra pour over.

Another method used to boost the yellow tinge in certain styles is to add several egg yolks to rice alongside the saffron, which also acts as a binding agent. A good example (albeit not the version my family uses) can be found here: https://persianmama.com/kateh-persian-quick-rice/

A tip for folks who buy saffron in any significant quantity, ALWAYS store it in the freezer if you aren't using it immediately. The stuff shipped to the US is already close to past its prime (and that doesn't even account for how long it's been sitting on a shelf, waiting to be bought).

And (for those who've seen this info before from me, sorry I'm so repetitive/obsessive on the topic), the way we usually process it is by dry grinding it with a small quantity of sugar to act as an abrasive and storing it in an air tight container. Then, when we're ready to use it, mix it with a small quantity of hot (not boiling!) water to create an infusion.

👍︎︎ 15 👤︎︎ u/SOL-Cantus 📅︎︎ Jul 20 2021 🗫︎ replies

Great video, but there were a few red flashes through the video (I am on mobile and couldn't catch the frame, so if there is a message or joke I missed it).

👍︎︎ 5 👤︎︎ u/gin_and_ice 📅︎︎ Jul 20 2021 🗫︎ replies

I mention all the time how the Rs are rolled in pre-modern French, but Charles Martel, a Germanic Frank, being given the modern French pronunciation treatment has got me convinced the conceit is that this will be done for everyone from post-Roman Gallia. Good meme.

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/IndigoGouf 📅︎︎ Jul 21 2021 🗫︎ replies

If saffron is too decadent for anyone here in my country we have something "similar" but wont be "the same" we call it kasubha

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/Algester 📅︎︎ Jul 23 2021 🗫︎ replies

From the land of risotto, I'd guess this rice was cooked in broth, then saffron was infused in a little almond milk added to finish it off and make it creamy. Which is what the recipe says, by the way.

This way the saffron wouldn't boil too much, which weakens both colour and aroma. Max's rice is still very yellow, but he used a fuckton of saffron. The usual dose for a risotto for four is 0,125 grams, a tenth of what went in Max's single serving.

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/Jaquemart 📅︎︎ Jul 21 2021 🗫︎ replies

Where did you do falconry?

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/Qafqa 📅︎︎ Jul 22 2021 🗫︎ replies
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As Donovan once sang "I'm just mad about  saffron" and so was Medieval Europe. The most expensive spice was all over the cookbooks of the Middle Ages, and today we're making a 14th century version of saffron rice which came with the rather dramatic name ryse of fleyshe. So thank you to Bright Cellars for  sponsoring this video as we discuss   saffron, this time on Tasting History.   So today's recipe comes from that  old chestnut 'The Forme of Cury',   an English cookbook from the court of Richard  II written around 1390. Now the recipe is really just for a fairly simple saffron rice but the book calls it ryse of fleyshe. But despite its name which translates to meat  rice, there is no meat in this rice except for   a bit of chicken stock. What it means is that it  shouldn't be served during Lent or fasting days   which there were many of in Medieval Europe,  rather it should be served with meat. "Ryse of fleyshe. Take rice and wash it clean and put in an earthen pot with good broth and let it cook well. Afterward take almond milk and add it and  color it with saffron and salt, and serve it forth.   Rather like saffron rice today albeit with almond  milk which was another very popular ingredient in the Middle Ages. What got me was that  it has you add the saffron and almond milk   after the rice is cooked. At least that's kind of  what I'm reading in the recipe, and I tried that   and it doesn't really work because it doesn't  end up coloring the rice properly, and that's   the point of adding the saffron was to color it,  or what they call endore foods which was a very   popular thing to do with all sorts of colors in  the Middle Ages. So I'm going to be cooking it with the rice so that we get that color like it's meant to be, and that's kind of the problem with   most cookbooks from the Middle Ages is what's  actually on the page is maybe not necessarily   what is actually meant to be happening, and that  was because the way that recipes were written   it was like a game of telephone. It would be  kind of like the chef talking to the cook,   who would then talk back to the chef, who would then talk to one or more scribes over a period of days. Possibly multiple chefs talking to  multiple scribes to write down the recipe.  So a lot of things don't make sense, but that's  okay. That's part of the fun, but for this recipe what you'll need is: 2 cups or 350 grams of white rice, 3 cups or 700 milliliters of chicken broth,   a large pinch or about a half teaspoon of  saffron threads. Now we are going to talk about saffron later but I can already hear people saying that's a lot of saffron. That's going to be a really expensive dish, yes it is the most expensive spice in the world coming in right now   at about ten dollars a gram for the  really good stuff, but in one gram of   saffron, that's a lot of saffron because it's such  a light thing. So the amount that I'm using for this is probably like two or three dollars worth,  which yeah it's a lot but it's not going to break the bank. Three quarters of a teaspoon of salt  and one cup or 235 milliliters of almond milk.   Now you can make your own almond milk. I've done it a few times here on the show. I'll put a link up here to the dillegrout episode where I made it just a couple months ago but you can also just buy it as long as the only ingredients are almonds and water. You don't want any flavorings, that that's not good. Now in the Middle  aAges it was often actually made with   wine but if you make this with wine, even if  it's white wine, it ends up kind of changing   the color so make it with water if you're going  to make your own, but even if we're not using wine to make our almond milk that doesn't mean we can't enjoy a glass of wine with our rice. A glass of wine which I got from today's sponsor Bright Cellars. I love Bright Cellars because they keep me on my toes when it comes to the wines that they send me. I started with the simple seven question quiz that lets Bright Cellars know your taste preferences, and then they sent me a selection. Then I got to rate those wines and  so the next box was even more tuned in to what I wanted. Personally my favorite thing is that they  send you these cards on each wine that you get   which gives you kind of some information about the  wine before you're actually drinking it. I've got   tetrachroma pinot noir which is from California.  It has vanilla, red currant, and strawberry. Busch   tele which is a cabernet sauvignon from Australia.  I just like the name bushtelly bushtelli it's my   terrible Australian accent right there, and  then Obscura Zinfandel. I love a Zinfandel.   This is strawberry plum raspberry. I think i  might have to go with the tetrachroma pinot noir. That's juicy. That's what that's the word I would  use, it's juicy. Oh I can taste that vanilla in there. That's going to go really well with our  saffron rice. Now Bright Cellars is giving TastingHistory viewers 50% off of their first six bottle box, so just click the link in the description to take your quiz and sign up today. Now with your glass of wine in hand go ahead and crush your saffron, and add some of the almond milk into the  mortar to let it diffuse for about five minutes.   During that time you can wash your rice  and set it in a pot with the chicken broth,   the rest of the almond milk and the salt. Finally  add the almond milk that has the saffron in it and   stir everything together. Then set it over a high  heat and bring to a boil. Let it boil for about 30 seconds, then reduce the heat to low and cover  the pot letting the rice cook for 20 minutes.   Now while that cooks let's take a look at why  Medieval Europe was just mad about saffron.    I love that song, obviously. I love Donovan and if  you don't know who Donovan is go look him up.   Saffron, the red gold of Persia or Spain, or  wherever it happens to be growing I suppose.   Now it was often the most expensive spice in  antiquity, and is still the most expensive spice today, but unlike other spices which were  expensive due to the fact that they had to   come all the way around the world, at least if you were in Europe, Saffron grew pretty much all over Europe for most of the Middle Ages. What made it so precious is how labor-intensive it was, and still is to obtain. It comes from the flower of the crocus sativus. The flowers need to be   hand-picked between September and October and they have to be picked within just a few hours of the blossom opening, otherwise the stigma will dry  up and kind of become unusable. And it's those   stigmas, stigmata, stigmata, stigma? It's those  stigmas that are well, that's the whole ball game   because that's where all the color and the flavor  are. Once they're picked and the stigma is removed then the stigma is dried and that is saffron. Now, the three stigmas in each flower are connected to a style which is much longer and weighs quite a bit, but it has no flavor and it has very, very little color. But it's often in inferior  quality saffrons to bulk it up. So if your piece   of saffron is that long, that ain't saffron. Now  I plan to do the entire history of saffron but   it turns out that it is a rather robust topic, and  so I am focusing on Medieval Europe because they   just love their saffron so, so much. So much so  that in 'The Forme of Cury' where we're getting   our recipe from today, it's in 40% of the recipes.  Now it's thought that after disappearing from Europe following the fall of Rome saffron probably called za'faran which comes from an old Arabic word meaning yellow was brought up through Spain by the Moors. After crossing the Strait of Gibraltar in 711, the Umayyad Khalif conquered much of the  Visigothic kingdom of the Iberian peninsula.   And they brought a whole wealth of learning to Europe as well as a brand new cuisine which included saffron. Some believe that it even made its way  as far north as Poitiers in France when in 732   Charles Martel pushed the Umayyad invasion back at the Battle of Tours. Now it's not known that it was growing there that early, but definitely by the early 1200s it was being cultivated in France. And not long after it was being cultivated  all around Europe. In England for instance it was grown throughout the southeast part of the kingdom most famously in a town called Chepyng Walden   which in a Medieval marketing campaign changed its  name to Saffron Walden, and the marketing campaign   clearly worked because in the 16th century the  Clergyman William Harrison said, "As the saffron of England... is the most excellent of all others... that which groweth about Saffron Walden in the edge of Essex surmounteth all the rest and  therefore bereth worthily the higher price."   Though much of the saffron in Saffron Walden  wasn't actually for eating but rather for dying cloth. The dye works there being established no  later than 1359.   And it's possible that Henry VIII who in 1514 granted the town a charter decorated with the saffron crocus had his clothes dyed yellow there. This wasn't long before he decided  that other people namely the Irish couldn't   "wear any shirt smock, kerchor, bendel, nickerchour, mocket,  or linen cap colored or dyed with saffron." He was all about controlling how people dressed and wore their clothes especially the Irish because he also said "No person... shall be shorn, or shaven above the ears... or have or use any hair growing on the upper lips called a crommeal." Do you think he means me? Do I need to shave? Man he was a jerk.   Also a little note about Saffron  Walden. It is the location of Audley End.   Anyone who watches Mrs. Crocombe will know that Audley End is where she works. Now while England was growing their own saffron or else importing  it from Spain or France depending on who they were   not at war with at any given time, other areas of  Europe also tried their hand at growing the stuff.   One was the town of Basel in Switzerland  who after having a large shipment stolen by   a group of nobles started a three-month war  with the thieves known as the Saffron War.   Now it ended in them getting their saffron  back but to stop it from happening again   they decided to start growing their own and  they did so with some success for about 10 years before they gave the venture up. Not entirely sure why but it's probably because it's just a lot of work. Instead even with thieving  nobles it was just easier to get it from Nuremberg.   For centuries whether coming north from Italy  or from the east via the Venetian spice trade, Nuremberg was where pretty much all of central  Europe saffron was sold and the trade was   controlled by just a few families, one of which  was the Imhof family and one member of that   family was named Katerina Lemmel. She was heavily involved in the business before deciding to become a nun, but just because she had become a bride of  Christ that didn't mean she was ready to give up her saffron.    In several letters to her cousin Hans  she has him send pounds of saffron to the convent each year mostly to be used during Lent while they  were singing and having to stay up late praying   because saffron in sufficient quantities could be  used as a stimulant. No coffee? No tea? Use saffron.   Now as I mentioned earlier there are still a lot  of knockoff saffrons or companies who kind of bulk   up their saffron to make it worth more and it was a problem in medieval Nuremberg too. Merchants were cutting their saffron with safflower, marigold and even horse hair, but the Germans are a no-nonsense people and so the officials of Nuremberg laid down the law with the Safranschou, or saffron show.  The schou would inspect the saffron and if it was deemed unworthy you would be punished. You could be  You could be fined or much, much worse. On July 27 1444 Jobst Findenken on his way back from getting saffron in Italy was found to have adulterated his product  and he was burned alive at the stake with his saffron, and his wife exiled from the city. There are also reports of people being buried alive with their saffron. Really messed up. But the reason for these draconian laws was because saffron was so important. It did a lot more than just dye clothes and make food gold. It was one of the most important ingredients in making the yellow inks of illuminated manuscripts, and was used to dye the hair of the ladies of Venice. In one twelfth century treatise on women's cosmetics and medicine known as the Trotula, women are instructed "For  making the hair golden. Take the middle bark of boxwood, flower of broom, saffron, and egg yolks, and  cook them in water. Collect whatever floats on top and anoint the hair." This wasn't nearly as bad as if you wanted your hair white.   "For whitening the hair. Catch as many bees as possible in a new pot and set it to burn, and grind with oil, and then anoint the head." And if you wanted to make your hair grow you had to take barley and grind it up with bear fat. Like *rawr. Bear fat, and then slather your head in that. Yeesh. But perhaps the most important use for saffron in the Middle Ages was as medicine. During the Black Death the price shot up because it was thought to be a cure for the disease. Treatments included saffron mixed with oat flour and treacle dissolved in vinegar. Then a cloth dipped in said vinegar should be pressed against the buboes. And if that was too complicated then eating a concoction of saffron mustard and   treakle fried in an egg shell was supposed to  work wonders. In 1482 Hans Folz who was a master barber of Nuremberg, and later made famous as one of di maestro zinga for Nuremberg in Wagner's opera, wrote a treatise where he prescribed saffron  soaked in vinegar as a treatment for the Plague   but he understood that not everyone could afford it and so he said that you could also just take   parsley and sage and put that in vinegar and that would work just as well. Kind of kind of sounds like he could work for my insurance company.  Now the Plague was not the only thing that could be treated with saffron. It could be used to treat melancholy or as a sedative or stimulant   or a carminative if you're feeling gassy. It could also be used as an antispasmodic but in that case   you didn't ingest it but used it as a poultice as in this recipe from a 15th century leechbook from England.   "Take may-butter of the amount of  a nut, five blades of saffron... and mingle it with the butter.   And put it in the navel of the sick. And take the earth that is upon a threshold... and lay it on coals of fire, and sprinkle there on dregs of good ale... take it up and lay it in a linen cloth...   And lay it over the butter and saffron, and so  put it on the navel. And he shall be whole."   Dirt from the doorway cooked with ale dregs that seems weird but at least butter and saffron sounds good,   until I tell you what may-butter  was. It was made in May has the name and it   it was made with no salt, but when it was used as a medicine it would be left out in the sun for   days or weeks until it became putrid. It sapped  all the vitamin A out and kind of filled it up  with vitamin D so it actually may have worked  for certain things like rickets and whatnot,   and it was used all the way until the 18th century... but ew? Now what if it's not you that's sick but let's say your pet bird? "Item, when any bird of prey yawns three times in a row and does not look well, it is a sign that it is sick with an illness the falconers call fills, which is a worm that pricks them. To cure the bird, feed it meat in which saffron has been wrapped, and the worms will die." It also says that if you want to control  these birds especially the large Peregrine falcon   you should not eat garlic, onions, or leeks.  Now a few years ago I went afalconin in England,   and the person who was in charge didn't tell me to alter my diet in any way and I'm starting to think   well that was a little negligent of him. Now by the 18th century most parts of northern Europe had stopped growing saffron, and it was possibly due to the little ice age in part but   mostly it was probably due to the fact that  people could make more money in a factory than out picking crocuses. Also the wealthy who had commanded the need for the spice   found new things to spend their money on like  chocolate and coffee and vanilla and tea. And it also probably didn't help that the Puritans  considered saffron and other spices in food   too decadent and they preferred a blander  cuisine, but whatever the reason outside of the countries of the Mediterranean like Spain and southern France and Italy most of Europe doesn't   use a lot of saffron today but that's okay means  more for me. Now let's finish this ryse of fleyshe. So once the rice is cooked for 20 minutes remove the pot from the heat, and let it sit for about 10 minutes to steam. Then fluff the rice and serve it forth. For added panache feel free to bedight it with a few extra strands of saffron,  and here we are 14th century saffron rice.   Smells very saffrony. I like that you know  it kind of adds like an aromatic but bitter   flavor, so you could probably tone down the  saffron and maybe not add the extra on top,   but I like it so that's what I did. It almost is like a risotto. It's very liquidy? It's not liquidy, it's  very moist. I guess would be   the word it's definitely not dry  rice. That's really good. One more. I'm not getting any almond milk. I mean it's  such a mild flavor. The saffron kind of cuts it.   You could not use almond milk I'm thinking  and it would be exactly the same, but maybe   there's a creaminess to the almond milk. I  don't know but it's absolutely wonderful.   I definitely think it would go  really well with some flesh or   meat. Osso buco something like that. That's  actually what it's often served with today.   Make me some osso buco. I don't have time  but if you want to make it, make it.   Now earlier I mentioned that they had stopped growing saffron in Saffron Walden way back in the 1700s,   but in the last few years a couple farmers have  actually started growing saffron in England again, and you can get English saffron. And they  have a saffron gin from the area that I really,   really want to try. Unfortunately I couldn't get  it shipped to the US but maybe I can figure out a way  because I really want to try that gin. O_O So thank you again to Bright Cellars for sponsoring this video and make sure to follow me on Instagram  @tastinghistorywithmaxmiller and I will see you next time on Tasting History. Probably going to finish this. How could I get osso bucco? I don't know. I really want osso bucco now! o_0
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Channel: Tasting History with Max Miller
Views: 484,092
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Keywords: tasting history, food history, max miller, saffron, saffron history, history of saffron, the forme of cury, english history, english historic food, medieval food, medieval recipes, middle ages, medieval cooking
Id: PIxN-pr3g7c
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Length: 19min 10sec (1150 seconds)
Published: Tue Jul 20 2021
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