How to Grow Saffron

It makes sense to grow your own saffron, the world’s most expensive spice. Here’s how to grow it affordably and add a little color to your cooking.

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Lancaster County cuisine is a small cuisine . For centuries , our Amish and Mennonite kitchen gardens have bring on farmers ’ nutrient — basic , unassuming repast that are have in mind to “ stick to your ribs ” and nourish your somebody . My Mennonite grannie were not trend - setting gourmets . They knew nothing of nouvelle brunches , or resort hotel cuisine , or macrobiotic dinners . Our food , here , is not about tarragon sauce and saint - hairsbreadth alimentary paste . We think in terms of quantity , not subtlety , at our farm tables .

For many visiting food lovers , it comes as a great surprise , then , to pick up that our rural Pennsylvania Dutch cooks are connoisseurs of the world ’s most expensive and alien spice—saffron . Elsewhere , this garden spiciness is often shrouded in an halo of alien mystery , but Lancaster County gardeners have been produce it alongside the cabbages for centuries .

•Saffron in the Pennsylvania Dutch TraditionSaffron recipes:•Stewed Chicken with Saffron and Chervil•Saffron - Flavored Spelt Salad with Corn•Saffron Tea Cake

Saffron recipes from FineCooking.com …

Saffron commonly means classic European cuisine , not American farm solid food . It is meant for risotto in Milan , and bouillabaisse in Marseilles , and paella in Madrid . But thankfully , it is also meant for Gallus gallus pot pie in Lancaster County .

Here , orange yellow is not the extravagant sumptuosity it is guess to be elsewhere . R.C. emperor bathed in saffron - sweet waters and carpeted their dramatic art with the imperial blossoms . Mennonite never did all that . Saffron , for us , means food — chicken dishes . This crocus provides the deep yellow color and pungent flavor that is decisive for the succeeder of some of our most traditional dishes . Actually , any dish using poultry or egg noodles is fair secret plan for saffron in Lancaster County . Our traditional culinary art calls for this yellow seasoning so oftentimes that we have been referred to as the “ Yellow Dutch . ”

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The buck and sense of saffronMy grandparent and theirs before them would have been surprised to hear you refer to their understated garden plant as the world ’s most expensive spice . When saffron has been growing beside your wood shed for generation , it seems as cheap as grunge .

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It has always made good sense to uprise your own saffron . If you have to bribe it , this spice really is as expensive as its reputation suggests . Producing saffron commercially is hugely labor intensive . It takes 75,000 prime to get just a pound of dry out orange yellow threads that wholesale for $ 70 per ounce .

The saffron crocus crocus , Crocus sativus , is an excellent addition to any landscape in Zone 6 through Zone 9 . It make up for its garden space many time over with its burst of autumn color and its grasslike foliage that stays green all wintertime .

Saffron is a crocus with personality . It hold up the traditional gardening time of year by lie dormant all summertime , and then , when the rest of the garden is turn bleak with frost , it pushes its purple blossoms up through the mulch to announce its spectacular presence . Each blossom offers up to three crimson brand , the female reproductive organs , to be peck for the next lather or salad or afters .

Saffron can be a slow acquired taste . The flavor is unlike any other , and has been variously described as “ pleasantly acerbic , ” “ earthy , ” and “ brackish . ” Of of course , if you are Yellow Dutch , it tastes incisively as you require it to .

The color that orange yellow contributes to orchis attic meal can be equally surprising to saffron novices . The nonsuch is a fond , buttery incandescence . A James Cook ’s grave hand , though , can raise a knockout that seems more crayon jaundiced than buttery . But here in Lancaster County , we do n’t mind that unusual yellow at all .

grow your own could n’t be easierDespite saffron ’s exotic repute , it is child ’s play to develop . This species is neither finicky nor erratic , it is disease and insect resistant , and it requires little attention year after yr . Its requirements are simple : Plant the bulbs ( technically they ’re corm ) in the summertime , harvest the stigmas in the fall , and if you get around to it , divide the plants every four years or so .

Growing Crocus sativus does require patience , even if it does n’t ask skill . A received “ starter kit ” of 50 saffron bulb will be around $ 40 or $ 50 , and will produce less than a tablespoon of seasoning the first harvest . Each year , though , you get more efflorescence and more spice from these bulbs , increase from one or two blooms per bulb the first twelvemonth , to eight flower or more by the third year .

Plant the corm 6 in . apart and 3 in . deep in plentiful , well - drained soil . Using your 50 bulbs , this will produce a orange yellow seam about 2 foot . by 5 foot . As a fillip , you may plant this layer with summer annuals , while the saffron is lie in in wait beneath the mulch for its fall growing time of year . My with child grandmother , Barbara Stoner , always farm portulaca in her saffron crocus bed , and that compounding is excellent for any century . When cold weather begins to twitch at the portulaca , you pull it out , and there is the saffron , pushing up for its turn in the October temperateness .

impertinent orange yellow thread can be used immediately for cooking , or they can be dried and stored . Here in Lancaster County , a folk graphics anatomy has evolved for the sole determination of storing saffron . We have created our own saffron boxes — miniature containers , shaped like egg cup , for storing this worthful spice . When these prize antiques show up at vendue , they sell for more than their weight in amber .

dry out the saffron threads is a simple process of place the strand on a paper towel for several day in a tender , ironical place . You should then transfer the dried saffron to an airtight container and keep it in on a cool shelf , ready for your next yellow chicken dish .

Dry the bright red stigmas ofCrocus sativus,and you have saffron.Photo/Illustration: Boyd Hagen

Our county ’s signature spice , saffron , plays a curious role in this folk art custom . Rural Lancaster County was so fond of this yellow flavouring that around the turn of the century , several Mennonite farmers set about craft saffron crocus boxes — folksy , hired man - made containers that resemble chalice with lids .

One sodbuster in special , Joseph Lehn , became the sea captain of the saffron loge . Lehn was a self - proclaimed preacher and part - sentence gun barrel God Almighty who turned to woodworking in the mid 1800s to add on his income . He became a ace on the pedal lathe , which he used to turn over out bollock cups , salt cellars , and most significantly , Crocus sativus boxwood . Then , like the good Pennsylvania craftsmen , Lehn turned utilitarian object into folk artwork by decorate these humble piece with his homemade paints . His good saffron boxes are smothered in Garland of strawberries , pussy willow , and Punica granatum .

Today , Lehnware can no longer be called humble . When a good Lehn seed chest surface , no one twinkle when the gavel drops at $ 48,000 . Fortunately for saffron devotee , Lehn saffron boxes are more affordable . But then folk art is not about money , it is about heritage . And if it is Lehnware , it is even about food .

by Clarke HessDecember 1997from issue # 12

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