Saffron comes from the blooms of the autumn-flowering crocus sativus. The three red "threads" emerging from the center of each flower must be carefully plucked and dried to produce the spice.
Why do I do things like this?
Scour Mumbai for diamond bangles minutes before I have to leave for the airport? Endlessly scheme (at 3 AM) to open a café in my future biodynamic garden, complete with fragrant antique roses and ancient apple trees?
And now: Grow saffron.
This is not exactly the saffron zone. For that you have to go to Iran or Kashmir. Maybe Spain or Morocco or Greece. There’s even a field or two in France. But not North Carolina with its drenching hurricanes and hungry squirrels.
And there’s another little problem: harvesting enough to use for cooking. It takes 150 autumn-blooming crocus sativus flowers to produce enough stigmas—the long red threads in the picture above—for one gram—that’s .035 ounce—of dried saffron. No wonder it’s the world’s most expensive spice.
Clearly this is more of a lark than a serious endeavor.
I’m just hoping to get a generous pinch, enough to gild a savory lobster and new potato stew, or infuse a pot of basmati rice with the spice’s bright metallic flavor.
So far I’ve done everything wrong.
Saffron corms, or bulbs, have a soft, straw-like covering. They should be planted 2 to 3 inches deep in well-drained soil amended with fertilizer--none of which I did.
The first step was to plant 100 corms: These are plump café au lait-colored bulbs covered with soft straw-like hairs. I didn’t plant early enough or deep enough or think to amend the soil with manure or any other fertilizer. I certainly didn’t sprinkle them with cayenne pepper to deter the squirrels who are probably now popping them into their mouths like ripe plums.
No, I just stuck half of them into odd, sunny corners of the garden and filled up some empty flower pots with the rest.
Today I found two little shoots emerging from the soil in a flowerpot--can saffron flowers be far behind? As long as the squirrels don't dig them up for a snack.
But guess what? Today I discovered a few pale shoots emerging from the soil. So I must be doing something right—or maybe you just can’t keep a good corm down.
Sometime around Halloween—and hopefully before the first frost—they’ll bloom. Three slender buds will emerge from each bulb. Then one morning the delicate lavender petals will unfurl to reveal a trio of precious red stigma emerging from the dark purple center of each flower. The trick is to pluck them without getting any of the adjacent yellow pollen on them—if you do, the saffron will have no flavor.
But here’s the question: Will I have the nerve to pick the flowers, strip away the glorious petals, carefully snip only the stigmas with my fingernails, and dry them in a very, very slow oven—in order to come up with perhaps a quarter teaspoon of saffron?
We’ll see.
Comments (3)
thank you for this. i planted some saffron bulbs in my yard a few years ago when i xeroscaped, but was never sure if they had come up or not. they did not. i have not seen any flowers so beautiful.
i did contact the local grower to get some new bulbs and she in going to invite me out to harvest and learn.
i am really excited. i planted garlic over the weekend from seed/ cloves that are the size of brazil nuts, conservatively. i can't wait to see the new plants.
Posted by marie | October 5, 2009 8:50 AM
Posted on October 5, 2009 08:50
Wow, this makes my efforts to round up the plums from my Italian plum tree and harvest my 30 pounds of green tomatoes and produce recipes for them look like child's play. Best of luck with it!
Posted by Cooking with Michele | October 6, 2009 9:36 AM
Posted on October 6, 2009 09:36
I hope you're making fried green tomatoes. Here's a great recipe with Indian spices:
http://www.spicelines.com/2008/09/recipe_fried_green_tomatoes_wi.htm
Posted by courtenay | October 6, 2009 3:26 PM
Posted on October 6, 2009 15:26