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Red gold: The world's most expensive spice - Carolyn Beans
Red gold: The world's most expensive spice - Carolyn Beans
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Untertitel (149)
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[music]
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[music]
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>> Spices are often far pricier
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proportionately than the foods they
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flavor, [music]
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but one's cost has long topped them all.
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Saffron's [music] red threads regularly
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run at rates over $600
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an ounce. So, why is this so-called red
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gold so expensive?
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Spices come from [music] different plant
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parts. Saffron is the only one made of
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flower stigmas. They're plucked from a
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flowering plant called a crocus.
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Different crocus species [music]
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dot countrysides across Eurasia and
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North Africa, and it appears that humans
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began harvesting wild crocuses quite a
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way back.
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Ancient cave paintings in what's now
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[music] Iraq derived colors from crocus
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pigments.
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However, this paint was probably created
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with a different [music] type of crocus
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because it's thought that the saffron
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crocus developed [music]
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relatively recently when a single wild
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crocus produced a seed
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>> [music]
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>> carrying an extra set of chromosomes.
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This mutation resulted in a flower with
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especially [music]
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long stigmas that packed high
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concentrations of three compounds of
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interest: crocin, [music] which lends
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saffron its vibrant hue and makes an
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effective dye, picrocrocin, [music]
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which gives saffron its characteristic
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taste, and saffronal, which imparts its
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hay-like aroma.
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The plant's added chromosomes also made
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it sterile, so it could have simply come
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and gone from the face of the Earth
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pretty quickly. But scientists think
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that people long ago recognized this
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unique crocus qualities.
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And while it couldn't reproduce sexually
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[music] by seed, it could spread through
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its corm, an underground stem-like plant
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organ that can asexually [music]
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generate new growth.
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It seems people began propagating it
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themselves, separating and cultivating
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new corm growths.
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Today's commercial saffron comes from
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crocuses that are all functionally twins
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from this single clonal line. Scientists
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think the original plant first emerged
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in southern [music] Greece. Exactly when
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is unclear, but over 3,500
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year-old Greek frescos depict women
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harvesting the spice.
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And saffron fields in modern-day Iran
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seem to trace back at [music] least
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3,000 years.
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Before long, ancient Persian people were
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stirring the spice into foods,
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freshening up with saffron-infused
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perfume, and draping [music] themselves
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in saffron-tinged fabrics.
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Ancient Greeks spread the spices
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sensuous smell in courts, theaters, and
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baths.
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And in 4th [music] century BCE Persia,
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Alexander the Great became smitten with
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saffron and recommended it in baths to
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treat battle wounds.
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Legend says Cleopatra likewise achieved
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glowing skin from soaking in the spice.
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And around the 9th century, Islamic
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rulers lavished each other with saffron
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gifts during prisoner exchanges and
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other diplomatic ventures.
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Persian physician Ibn Sina included
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saffron in his Canon of Medicine circa
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1025 as an aphrodisiac and treatment for
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ailments like depression, asthma, and
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inflammation. Meanwhile, a Tibetan text
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boasted saffron's immune-strengthening
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and beauty-intensifying [music] powers.
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In 1300s Europe, saffron was a purported
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antidote to the plague.
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Many of these historical accounts of
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saffron's health benefits don't hold up
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or are overblown, but saffron has indeed
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proved to have anti-inflammatory [music]
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and antioxidant properties.
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In medieval Nuremberg, the [music]
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government appointed inspectors to check
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for saffron fraud and dole out
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punishments [music]
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as extreme as the death penalty. While
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in the early 1700s, settlers brought
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saffron to North America, where it
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fetched the same price as gold at the
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Philadelphia exchange. Saffron's pricey
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preciousness, then and now, comes down
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to its production. Most of the work
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required to produce [music] saffron is
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squeezed into the crocuses' roughly
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two-week flowering window. Workers often
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begin at dawn, hand-picking the
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crocuses, usually before they blossom to
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prevent wilting and preserve [music]
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potency. Then, they pluck the three
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stigmas from each flower and dry them.
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They must process [music] around 150,000
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flowers, the equivalent of over 400
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hours of labor, to produce a single
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kilogram of saffron.
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A little goes a long way in what have
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become some of saffron's [music]
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signature dishes, a few threads infusing
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whole trays of tahchin, pans of paella,
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and bowls of bouillabaisse. [music]
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But the spice's price has stayed
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astronomical. Over generations, [music]
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farmers have selectively bred many other
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domesticated crops [music] to maximize
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yields and other desirable traits.
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However, because saffron crocuses
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[music]
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are all sterile clones, they've remained
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largely unchanged, as have [music] their
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labor-intensive, low stigma yields.
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Some researchers [music] are
6:00
investigating experimentally inducing
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mutations,
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but environmental instability has made
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harvests increasingly unreliable,
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threatening the saffron crop and the
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traditional livelihoods that have
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painstakingly kept the miraculous mutant
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alive for [music] millennia.
6:22
Ready to keep learning? Watch these
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videos to either challenge what you
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think you know, or learn more about what
6:28
you don't. Subscribe and stay curious.
6:37
>> [music]
