For some, cooking at home means saving a penny or two and being able to experiment with different flavors and ingredients. It’s nice to be adventurous in the kitchen and deviate from recipes; to add your own personalized touch to a dish.

Would you be as generous, though, if you were experimenting with a spice that cost as much as gold? 
Yes, I’m talking about Saffron - known notoriously for being the most expensive spice in the world; a spice that I have been too intimidated to experiment with. My closest encounter to this spice was at a family-owned Indian market where tiny jars of the luxury spice were placed behind the register counter in the safe-keeping of the shop owner. Each jar – containing a gram of Saffron – costing up to $15. Very intimidating.

So why is this seemingly ordinary spice so painfully costly? This red-orange, thread-like spice is hand-plucked from the Crocus flower – there being only three threads per flower. To give you a visual idea, it takes a football field of these Crocus flowers to make one pound of saffron, or 70,000 threads. Saffron is typically purchased by the ounce or by the gram – it taking 13,125 threads to yield an ounce or 463 threads to yield a gram. At around $15 per gram, how much does it take to purchase an ounce? There are 28.35 grams in an ounce. You do the math. 

The good news is that it doesn’t take much Saffron to flavor a dish. If anything, users’ biggest worry would be to overuse the spice – not due to it being expensive but because too much may leave a dish with a medicinal flavor. Three threads – or a little more than half a teaspoon – is sufficient for each person; therefore 1 gram can last a good amount of meals. 

As with all other spices, Saffron comes in a powdered form, and like all other spices, the whole is more powerful than their powdered counterpart. If buying Saffron powder, buyers should purchase from a reliable source to avoid buying powder that has been diluted with other spices or additives. 

Saffron threads can be toasted, soaked, crushed, or crumbled before use – depending on it’s use (i.e. typically, paella calls for toasted, soups call for crumbled). 

Keep in mind that there are substitutions that mimic the color and appearance of Saffron such as turmeric or safflower, but nothing can stand in for the aroma and flavor – or the price tag for that matter – of precious Saffron. 

I have now done my research and am prepared to go back to the Indian market and purchase a jar of fresh Saffron and explore this spice further in sight, smell, and taste.

Diana