What Is This The Most Expensive Spice In The World? | The Spice Trail | Absolute History

[Music] the world loves spice the exotic ingredients in so many of our favorite dishes have revolutionized the way we eat but the search for these amazing tastes now found in every kitchen cupboard changed the course of history this is a journey to find out how spices shaped our modern world I'm going to be visiting some of their exotic birth places and traveling the globe to discover just how these spices made it to our tables [Music] I'll be meeting the people whose lives depend on them and following the trail of the first spice explorers empires built and destroyed immense fortunes made and countless lives lost during one of the most exciting periods of discovery in the history of the Western world and all in the name of spice [Applause] [Music] [Music] the two most highly prized spices in the modern world have spread around the globe in the wake of some of the world's greatest conquests I'll be following the trail of saffron or red gold from Morocco to Spain in the footsteps of the Moorish Empire and from Spain to the new world to discover how Mexican vanilla became one of the world's favorite tastes [Music] [Music] my journey begins here in Morocco's high atlas mountains where I'm hoping to uncover the story of a spice that Alexander the Great used a Shampoo and Cleopatra bathed in celebrated in the Bible it's so ancient its origins are unclear but today it's best known for being the most expensive spice in the world its saffron [Music] but why is it so costly how can a simple ingredient really cost a staggering four thousand pounds a kilo or this is a good place to find out sies is the center of the saffron farming region here in Morocco and every Wednesday all the farmers come down from their farms and little villages and settlements in the mountains around here to the market to sell their produce and what's unique I think in Morocco about this market is there's not a tourist in sight there's no one pressing me to buy a carpet or to have a cup of tea it's just the real deal goodness circle moon monster it is extraordinary market this I mean you can buy everything from dried-up reptiles to dates of fish sandwiches but what I haven't seen is any saffron yet we're right in the heart of Morocco saffron growing region I'm hoping that a little local knowledge will help me track it down my food Maha Dean's family has been in the saffron business for generations [Music] yes yes Satya you can see it's a red gold red ball it is like red gold yes so this is it saffron it's the stigma the inner part of a tiny purple crocus good color ones goods but the smell is unusual it's like I'm it smells sort of smoky it smells like honey but I can't describe it yes ah ha ha ha good to me is that all that's delicious yeah delicious I'm gonna like this saffron journey I think it's gonna be a good journey of discovery thank you I am happy saffron has been grown and sold by the Berber people in this area for thousands of years the market now is really filling up getting busy yes but I still can't see any on sale [Applause] spices yeah saffron here oh god the saffron you you like to see the second series is here here you can see yes yes saffron is fame not just for its taste but its color as this simple test shows this is top quality saffron so this is how you know it's good yes say I want to buy like this much yes it's five grams everyone gather around because i yeah i'm buying a lot 5 grams of saffron is how much 200 dirham yes about 20 pounds full five grams yes so are you feeling suffering yes yes yes yes Foreman this is ready of course yes garden yeah yes I'd love that they have got them suffer can I come to your farm and see akmed lives just a few kilometers from the market in an area that seems too barren to grow anything oh man you live in a beautiful place yes the garden Suffern is here this is your garden down here yes Nick is the eager and Akane it's like a small oasis yes yes yes oh this dry landscape because the saffron he like the dry climate it likes the dry climate climate yes every family has the garden of saffron really I never imagined that in a harsh landscape like this you could grow such delicate little flowers and this is saffron flower what do you mean this is like my crocuses at home okay without the crucial difference is this the bright red stigma the female parts of the plant which dried become saffron and then you have to remove this yes by hand yes every single yes yes so much akmed comes from a long line of saffron farmers their knowledge and skill passed down through the generations their secret is the irrigation of their fields as a pile of sheep dung in each one and as the water comes in that spreads out the dung so he fertilizes and waters the field at the same time it's genius [Music] if we looked at this landscape yeah you think nothing can grow here it's completely barren yeah and yet the barber make it a Garden of Eden yeah garden of saffron yes amazing yes exactly yeah exactly Ahmed dries and stores his saffron in a special room in his house he sells some of it immediately but he will also keep some bye [Music] last year savings occur when mama or family is ill if someone has to go to hospital this is like your insurance necklace wasn't in there do you want to yeah give me a self-assessment I like [Music] [Music] most of today's farmers keep their saffron safe in padlocks metal boxes but one nearby village does things on a much grander scale my food and I are climbing up to see an ancient storehouse for the villagers valuables [Music] and I was not expecting that goodness that's not a storehouse that's a castle for saffron it's beautiful beautiful it looks impenetrable it's amazing [Music] not much is stored here now but the sheer size of this fortress-like complex is impressive built over many centuries it shows just how precious saffron has always been how does this work this is the box box marbles so every little wooden door yeah it's like someone's safe like a bank vault yes yes saffron honey money or anything that is Val yes yes the door small door smoke eyes it's big the KB is big it's a bear about Fort Knox yeah [Music] I feel like I'm in India James it's me that [Music] what must it be like to live in a landscape like this [Music] [Music] mauricio Noah oh and also saffron el because people want to store some bits of flour yes safely yes there's a magic hour to pick saffron it's just after dawn when the morning dew has evaporated and before the flowers wither I've joined up meds extended family on their daily walk to work you start to appreciate why saffron is so expensive it is ridiculously labor intensive and I can't even see how you could mechanize any part of this are you stealing my flowers each saffron bulb produces four flowers one at a time over five or six days harvesting will go on for about a month and then it's all over until next year it takes an astonishing 200 thousand flowers to yield just a single kilogram of saffron worth up to four thousand pounds but even if our meds family could pick that amount they would be lucky to see a quarter of that price in a good year saffron provides just enough for our meds family to live on with a little left over to put in his storeroom this field behind me was totally purple and every single flower has gone only for that magic to happen again tomorrow morning and there'll be more flowers let me see have you got we've got look this is a sign of a saffron picker yeah we've both got purple fingers it means good [Laughter] [Music] once all the morning's flowers are picked we return to our meds house for the next job separating the precious stigmas from the flowers just get the feeling that this scene [Laughter] [Music] after saffron plucking I joined the women preparing the evening meal almost everything we're going to eat tonight was grown in Earth meds fields including of course the saffron there's quite a lot of saffron going in here it's beautiful so does this go in the in the couscous while everything's cooking the women decide I look far too unladylike and set about transforming me with traditional Berber dress and saffron makeup so DJs grinding up the saffron to powder [Music] it's very soothing that it feels like she's putting dots all over my face but team you've made me look like a princess [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] suitably dressed I join the family to eat the spice that is so intrinsic to their way of life I think for the first time in my life I can actually taste Safin and it tastes really unusual but undeniably exotic taste it it's just wonderful the tradition of saffron growing here hasn't changed for centuries [Music] in the year 711 the Berbers carried these traditions north when they crossed the Mediterranean to conquer Spain they took their customs their Islamic religion and their saffron bulbs and so it's Spain that I'm heading to next the Berbers sailed from Africa across the Straits of Gibraltar and pushed deep into the heart of Spain the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula took only seven years to complete but was to last over seven centuries the new barber rulers became known as the Moors and their traditions and sense of taste traveled with them [Music] this is la mancha a huge swathe of flat land about a hundred kilometres south of Madrid and it's famous for two things it was the setting of Spain's best-known novel don quixote but it's also the center of Spanish saffron production just like in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco the cold winters and hot summers here suited saffron well la Mancha became known as the saffron capital of the world [Music] the town of Consuegra in the heart of la mancha comes alive every year during the saffron picking season the town plays host to a three-day festival to celebrate the harvest of saffron everybody is queueing for the classic Spanish dish it is of course paella well a good one anyway what we have here is a really typical dish of the region it's a mixture of peppers tomatoes there are strands of saffron in here as in Morocco the saffron farms here a largely family-owned but during the harvest the people of the town always lend a hand separating the stigmas from the flowers break this up I'm not moving the hand and that like that how do you ladies spend your days what do you want what do you do because you're old you're not older than me do you all like saffron do you cook with saffron at home muchacho lemon winner Welsh no much important a sister we will meet you Natasha connect the trunk Wow such was the value of saffron the women here are telling me that unless you are known to have a healthy store of the spice no one would agree to marry you one more time the testicle you know what love over 1 million it'll think it may not be such a consideration these days but saffron is still an intrinsic part of life in this region of Spain these sleepy towns in la mancha are one of the world's biggest centers of trade in saffron as well as growing it they import the spice from all over the globe from countries like India and Iran and there are no shortage of experts who can detect which saffron comes from where I've joined 30 saffron Sherlock's in a blind tasting to tell the best from the rest this is a competition to try and establish the difference between saffron so one of these four samples is from the best it's from La Mancha and one of them is apparently from Iran it's one of those foreign imposters owner bombs I didn't call my resources gamma have ER the not-me everyone here looks very knowledgeable it was a good one you should smell slightly fruity and kind of humid whereas the old ones will smell rancid see look at the color of that just looks old and the kind of orange yellow and a bit dead [Music] I don't know can you imagine I'll be drummed out of town if I like the Iranian one best I'm going for number four as the bitter stuff competitive the results in el primero an early learning is there Pharaoh as a friend element you want to man to marry an oops so basically I got it incredibly wrong now I'm gonna have to leave town it's been great fun testing my saffron tastebuds but protecting the quality of saffron is a serious business anything that sells for up to four thousand pounds per kilo is going to inspire imitation [Music] I'm on my way to the University of Alberta where scientists are trying to establish how to tell pure saffron from some often very sophisticated fakes Wow are these like your children yeah almost professor Jose Antonio Perez is studying the plants DNA and he shows me some examples of the way imitations that are sold as pure saffron are anything but because Aafrin is so expensive it has been mixed with many things different plants that one's not suffered this is soldiers I mean even I in my beginners status can tell this isn't safe from it it actually looks like a little dried flower petal the IDS this is another plant which is sometimes turmeric turmeric that's right so they will mix turmeric they could do with saffron there they could do it could be ground up it's a colored plastic and you wouldn't want them as it is really rustic candy plastic could be organic or not organic material so we could all be sprinkling bits of colored plastic on our feeders never know exactly but why would they do that because these materials are very very cheap and so from the pure saffron is very expensive so this is very simple [Music] but some of the fakes are so very sophisticated made from plants that are chemically almost identical to saffron that it's only by testing their DNA that Professor Perez and his team can tell the fake from the real thing whether Marcel is doing now is the correct DNA fingerprinting of suffer the DNA fingerprinting we should do something practical in terms of our approaches practical science so we were trying to help because it's our duty all this thing has to be done otherwise we will not be sure of having having suffering for the next next of four thousand years but fakery doesn't just affect the saffron trade it has a knock-on effect wherever the spice is used Manolo sir is a celebrated chef with a passion for real saffron so you use quite okay so this is this is completely chemical in menorahs opinion saffron colored powder can and will never be a substitute for true la mancha saffron para la fermentation is teeny son losses thick missdella floor intentions second suggested a Francia Authority aqui en este to zero at an emotional dogs camuto feed oh come on in Fran so in here is this wonderful manalo described it as I sort of broth but it's like a stew really it's absolutely thick with meat and it smells amazing [Music] enter Sir David knotek moisture Aramis a la Loire del estado y como consecuencia Dexter recuerdos Antilles no estas cosas de hacer este pleito no and what's amazing is that from all that cooking you really smell the saffron coming up [Music] or not remeasuring I promise you never will I use turmeric instead of saffron [Laughter] [Music] the saffron trail leads from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco to the plains of Spain and Beyond in La Mancha the joyful celebrations of the saffron harvest masks a hard truth [Music] fake saffron threatens the livelihoods of communities throughout the saffron growing world but there are people prepared to fight to keep the integrity of the world's most expensive spice [Music] [Applause] [Music] the Moors left their mark here in Spain influencing both food and architecture [Music] but by the late 1400s Moorish power had diminished King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were ruling a newly united Spain after kicking out the Moors they too wanted to spread their influence to lands beyond their borders it was they that sponsored the explorations that would find a whole new world and a new spice hitherto entirely unknown in Europe the Spanish fleet was sent westward in search of the fabled Spice Islands it was entirely the wrong direction they fail to find the Spice Islands but they did discover the lands that were to become known as the Americas and with them came a whole new source of exotic tastes [Music] this coast in Mexico is where one of the most infamous of the Spanish invaders landed it was 1519 and Hernan Cortes was the man with his eye on a spice fortune the people who lived here in the city of qui Winston eyed his arrival with suspicion these ancient ruins are not Aztec or Mayan they are actually totanac and it was the totanac people that totally dominated this region of Mexico before and during the time that Cortes first arrived here it was the totanac people of this city who were amongst the first to be aware of Cortez's arrival because when he did come here he anchored his ships on that tiny rock out there the people Cortez met on his arrival here with the guardians of an exotic spice totally unknown to the Europeans all the Arab traders who had kept the taste buds of Europe tingling for centuries with spices like pepper cinnamon and nutmeg this was something entirely new it was vanilla the totanac formed and cured vanilla as a medicine and a perfume for their temples and totanac cities like this was spread all along the coast of Veracruz one of the biggest was here in the very heart of the vanilla growing area this city el tajin was once a major totanac center where vanilla would have been used as a currency it had enormous value even back then largely because the totanac believed it was sacred and here's why there once lived a princess called morning star and she was so beautiful and pure of spirit it was decreed that she should never be possessed by a mortal man now unfortunately a young man named runningdear ignored that decree fell madly in love with her and she clearly did with him because they ran away together the high priests were furious set off in hot pursuit and when they found them they put them to death immediately and on the spot where their blood was spilled a plant grew up you guessed it a vanilla vine and when the beans ripened the scent was deemed to be so exquisite it could only be the embodiment of the pure spirit of the princess [Music] don't forget that next time you're having a bowl of ice cream [Music] nearby is the city of pecan claw it is the center of the vanilla growing business in Mexico and some of the people living here are totanac direkt descendants of the tribe that Cortez first encountered Vania the real thing [Music] not so long ago these streets were covered in vanilla this film shot in PAP antler in 1923 shows vanilla pods being left out to dry in the Sun so famous was the city for its sweet smelling vanilla that pop antler became known as the city that perfumed the world just a few miles outside PAP antler lie the lush tropical forests where vanilla still grows today Jose Luis Hernandez has been growing vanilla all his life and he's an enthusiast for the original totanac ways of cultivating the spice is this LaPlante c'est la vie did you [Music] I just had no idea it was going to look like that it looks like a mad primeval vine it's amazing it's what he cannot either Nikki yes not give you these are the beans see this is what it looks like for hundreds of years up until the 19th century vanilla could only grow in this region and here's the reason one tiny little insect unique to this part of the world it's called the Mel Epona B and it's the sole pollinator of the vanilla flower this endemically mexico CM % of mexicana is an insect of melatonin does this is una tradición quesadilla nail out of las flores recycling sector so when the flower comes out the little B so you pollinate the flower and then the flower dies and the fruit begins to grow I mean I see vanilla takes a very long time to grow from the appearance of the first flower to the harvest of the vanilla pod takes nine months I've arrived after the flowering season so I'm not expecting to be able to see a vanilla flower la flora is una dia is okay is that about to come see come in but this is completely out of season I caused us killin a twirl is No Mas un momento unas warez Bob rear in la mañana y medio de acero Yakubu a lot Elias alternative love and you think it could flower tomorrow see ya Vienna will you call me feel like I've had a morning of complete revelation who'd have guessed that it has to be pollinated by one particular tiny species of bee and only then can those beans grow what is without doubt is that vanilla is definitely Mexican in fat it's definitely totally it comes from this region it is it is absolutely rooted here and I feel that I have actually come to the very birthplace of vanilla [Music] thirty meters above the ground in pop antler of five totanac men about to take part in a spectacular ritual it's a call to their gods to help ensure a good crop of vanilla [Music] they're now doing the fertility dance we're sort of ritual dance to their fertility god way back when there was a huge drought here and it looked like the whole vanilla crop was going to be devastated which of course would have destroyed the region so some tonot men got together and said okay what do we need to do to make it rain we need to do something spectacular to inspire our fertility God to make it rain and this this is what they came up with the Spanish invader Cortez would have been the first European to witness this spectacle but he had his eye on a higher prize the legend of El Dorado spoke of untold amounts of gold and Cortez was determined to find it he headed inland in search of the most powerful ruler in Mexico Montezuma the king of the Aztecs and Montezuma welcomed Cortes with a drink that he felt was fit for a king it was cacao chocolate flavored with our old friend vanilla and Cortez became the very first European to taste that most aromatic of spices Cortes wasted no time in shipping this exotic spice back to Spain little knowing he was introduced in Europe to a taste that today has become ubiquitous and hugely popular the world over [Music] [Music] nice tan or kiria Lafleur I really it's just such an astonishing color see like fresh you know that's momentum it's an extraordinary piece of luck to see a vanilla orchid bloom out of season but if the secret to the success of growing vanilla lies with the little Mel Epona be that only exists here how do vanilla ever grow outside Mexico well this chat is the reason his name was Edmund obvious and in 1841 he was a 12 year old slave boy living on an estate in réunion then a French colony in the Indian Ocean just off the coast of Madagascar now at that time his master like so many others were desperately trying to cultivate vanilla the vines would grow beautifully in hot tropical climates like that but what they couldn't get to happen was for them to flower on any regular basis well one day Edmund was wandering around his master's estate when he happened across a vanilla flower and he discovered somehow that if he fiddled with it in a certain way he could pollinate it and it worked it produced have been he managed to work out how to pollinate it and this is how he did it so are you gonna pollinate this manatee jose-luis uses a sliver of wood just as Edmund alveus did to move a membrane aside before pollinating the plant jose-luis brushes the pollen on the tip of the stick across the stigma to fertilize the flower a cue a little swallow me yeah like balloons yeah yes time yeah so what Jose is done is basically the work of the bee and thought the male and female parts of the plant together so it's now fertilized I can't believe how lucky we've been discovering how to hand pollinate vanilla was a major breakthrough but it was the beginning of the end for Mexico's monopoly on the world's supply of the spice in less than a hundred years the island of Madagascar was producing more vanilla than Mexico [Music] now little more than 1% of the world's vanilla comes from Mexico Norma Gaia runs one of the oldest vanilla companies in the country here after months of curing the vanilla is graded according to quality we have a storage here in this boxes seize my grand-grandfather we use the same system the best vanilla pods are valued for their rich flavor aroma and amount of vanillin oil this is you can see their crystals we can see very good thing this is crystals it's a lot of vanillin content so it's the vanillin that your content that makes it valuable isn't it I mean the smell of it is like it doesn't smell like any vanilla I've ever smelled before no it smells like it smells like alcohol I'm feeling a little bit drunk just just smelling it but what I don't understand mama is why are you producing only a fraction of the world's vanilla because the people they don't know about the vanilla ice from Mexico and the vanilla grow here in the Tanakh area so most of the natural vanilla go outside of Mexico does that mean that basically people like the touch knock farmers the traditional vanilla growers have stopped growing yep [Music] so it seems that not only have Mexicans lost interest in vanilla but the world's traders themselves have turned to other countries with lower labor costs to acquire the spice Madagascar and Indonesia have become V places for vanilla Mexico has been left behind Jose Manuel Rodriguez is a vanilla exporter only too aware of the seriousness of the situation is there a danger that Mexican vanilla could become extinct unfortunately I would have to say yes if things don't change if producers farmers keep getting so disappointed about what they get for for their green vanilla and the low the global market stays so low they will just stop producing it but there is still hope Jose is one of a new wave of Mexicans hoping to convince a growing gourmet market that all the work involved in producing the original Mexican vanilla really does make it a product worth rediscovering like saffron it's amongst the most labor-intensive crops in the world taking about 18 months of care from the point of pollination to the dried and cured finished spice when you smell and you touch the the vanilla if you are have been in touch with other pinellas you most of time you recognize directly quality then again it is a matter of what's behind our vanilla it's not just a production of a spice it is the origin of it all that which comes behind all that knowledge from thousands of years I will try to to appeal to you that this is not just vanilla this is Mexican vanilla this is the vanilla the world fell in love [Music] and that seems to be the point the craft of vanilla production is so important to the totanac way of life its loss would mean the demise of an essential part of their heritage and it smells lovely Willy [Music] so how do the new vanilla enthusiasts get the word out to find out I'm on my way to one of the largest cities in the world so I'm left very early this morning with the indefatigable Don Jose at the wheel todo bien good everything is good and that's great because we've got a very long journey ahead of us six to eight hours for get to Mexico City and it's a long way from here [Music] [Music] 22 million people live work and eat in and around Mexico City and in one of its top restaurants someone is trying to excite the taste buds of some of its more discerning citizens with a little help from vanilla of course Gerardo Vasquez the chef of this restaurant is renowned for reintroducing Mexicans to the ingredients that Mexico gave to the world but what I need to ask you about is vanilla we have lost our touch with the tradition and ingredients the volcano always has been expensive to people in Mexico to sell it rather than really to eat it yes of course it became so popular in Europe and the states in all over the world and he became so precious Here I am trying to discover everything about vanilla and I have to confess if you are out there I will send you something okay and I hope you like the taste that most of us associate with vanilla may be little more than a sweet spice but vanilla has a very complicated flavor and Gerardo uses it in both sweet and savory dishes oh that smell amazing this is feel feel you know a lot you can't tell me bananas in there this person has a lot a lot I love all the tiny black yeah it's vanilla this banana this is so delicious [Music] parado may be making strides in cosmopolitan Mexico City but it'll take more than a few ala carte recipes to create a whole new demand for real totanac Fenella [Music] [Music] Master esta aqui soy estudiante - bye Nia where's Nene put me to work put me to work here in another very different kind of kitchen is a group of totanac women who are part of a movement keeping the traditional uses of ingredients like vanilla alive they call themselves women in smoke and their leader Marta is determined to make sure these cooking skills and recipes get passed on to a new generation [Music] so you toast the money as well these toasted cocoa beans and vanilla pods are the key ingredients for probably the most historically significant drink in Mexico like the Aztecs gave to Cortes it's the drink that Cortez first drank with Montezuma the drink that sealed the fate of Mexico five hundred years ago it was a sweet taste for Cortes but a bitter moment for Mexico within three years Montezuma was dead and Spain had effectively conquered the country that's the vanilla going in oh you need some with the vnh chief common test load que lo que se llaman realmente licencia de la mujer SS da ha ha I see [Music] ASIMO nosotros que que que cosa Nommos con las manos de l'alma Esposito [Music] so the hot chocolate is ready it smells incredible it doesn't smell like the hot chocolate you and I know it smells like basically a whole bar has been melted into this covenant [Music] it just turns up into a little turtleneck hospitality here's to it I'm finishing my journey with the people who know this spice better than anyone the people who were the original cultivators of a bean that was to become known throughout the world it's a unique product with a culture and history as rich and unusual as its taste there are many here in Mexico we would love to see the production of vanilla returned to its years of former glory there's Jurado the chef the new generation of traders and producers but most importantly it's the totanac people the original vanilla people they're farmers and people like Marta who believe that keeping the totanac culture alive could ensure a future for Mexican vanilla and who knows maybe one day we'll be able to walk around our own supermarkets pick out a vanilla bean that says on its label proudly produce of Mexico

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 151,764

Keywords: history documentaries, quirky history, world history, ridiculous history, origins of spices, spice history, kate humble, kate humble documentary, kate humble the spice trails, the spice trails, Indonedia, Indonesian spices, saffron, saffron origins, expensive spice, spice trade, vanilla, saffron and vanilla

Id: nJxsY5g2g7Q

Length: 57min 52sec (3472 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 12 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/PastelFlamingo150]

In this time the most precious substance in the universe is the Spice Melange Saffron. The Spice extends life, the Spice expands consciousness, the Spice is vital to space travel.