Saffron, Crocus sativus, with visiting Common Carder Bee, Bombus pascuorum. 8th October 2018.

It’s Saffron season on the allotment, though my ten plants won’t make me a fortune anytime soon.

Saffron, Crocus sativus, is a member of the Iris family, the Iridaceae. There are around 90 species of Crocus, and they are perennial plants that grow from a corm, a short, vertical, swollen underground stem. Crocuses flower in spring, autumn or winter and become dormant in the hot, dry summer months.

We often grow spring-flowering crocuses in our gardens, but Saffron flowers in autumn, as does its relative the very poisonous Autumn Crocus, Colchicum autumnale.

In Britain, Saffron’s leaves start to appear in very late September or early October, barely breaking the soil surface, then the flowers rapidly spring up and open, almost overnight, like fungi. The beautiful purple flower opens to reveal three deep orange female flower parts (styles and stigmas) and three lighter orange-yellow male parts (the stamens). It is the female parts (known as threads) which form the saffron strands we use in cooking. They are picked by hand, even in commercial cultivation. I gently pluck them by hand from my Saffron flowers, leaving the flowers intact. Tweezers are useful but you have to remember to take them with you. On a larger scale, it is easier to pick the whole flowers and take them home to remove the threads. Fresh saffron has no taste, and must be dried and left for about a month before it is used, after which it will keep for at least a couple of years in an airtight container.

Saffron is a very expensive spice, which is not surprising. About 150 flowers are needed to make one gram of dried saffron. (This estimate would require 68,000 flowers to make a pound of saffron; other estimates give 75,000 or even 80,000 flowers to the pound.)

It is hardly surprising that adulteration of saffron can be a problem. In extreme cases, horse hairs, corn silks and shredded paper have been substituted for the genuine article and last year the BBC reported that the synthetic food colourings tartrazine and sunset yellow were used in counterfeit powdered saffron. Marigold petals and Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius) have also been used as adulterants. Even adding the Saffron stamens to real Saffron will dilute the flavour.

We tend to think of Saffron as an exotic spice and much of what we use is imported from Iran (with about 90% of world production), Spain, Portugal, France and India. However, it will grow in some parts of the British Isles. The town of Saffron Walden was a centre of Saffron growing in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries, before demand fell and the town became a centre for producing malt and barley. Earlier than that, Saffron was probably introduced by the Romans, then died out and was reintroduced around the fourteenth century [note 1]. Nowadays a quick search of the internet reveals that Saffron is grown in several places in Britain, including Norfolk (near Burnham Market), Cheshire, Essex (not far from Saffron Walden) and Devon.

If you want to grow your own saffron, you will need a sunny site with light but fertile soil. Our allotment has sandy soil which, with the addition of some organic matter – I use horse manure – suits the plant well. I did water my plants once this year in late September because it had been very dry, but this often isn’t necessary. The plants are hardy down to -26C but only if the soil is light.

Plant the corms 10 to 15cm (2 – 3 inches) deep and leave a 10cm gap between them. Keep the ground weed free, especially from September onwards. In my second year of growing I have so far found Saffron to be free of pests, but the Saffron Bulbs website lists a few potential problems, as well as giving lots of growing advice. Moving the corms every three or four years (when the plants are dormant) should prevent trouble, after which Saffron Bulbs recommends not using the same area again for ten years.

After flowering the leaves will continue to expand and will stay green through the winter, supplying food to the corm until they wither and disappear in May. Each year, the corms will multiply and already I have some that have doubled up and are producing two flowers. I planted my corms in early September 2017 and had three flowers in the third week of October. This year I have had fourteen flowers from seven plants, from early October, with more on the way. I recommend growing the plant for its beautiful blooms as much as the edible saffron threads. Late season bees and hoverflies seem to like them too: the aroma of fresh flowers in the sunshine is very noticeable even to the human nose.

As well as its use as an ingredient in cooking, Saffron has a number of actual and alleged medical uses. Most promising effects are on the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, depression, menstrual discomfort and premenstrual syndrome. Sadly, Saffron may not be effective in treating asthma, psoriasis, cancer, stomach gas or baldness. It can also be used as a dye for cloth. However, as it is such an expensive spice, the Plants For A Future website notes that “it is little used at present because cheaper and more effective herbs are available”. The Science Direct website has details of some of the research that has been carried out on the plant and its effects. Active ingredients include picrocrocin and safranal, which give the taste and smell, and crocin, a carotenoid pigment that gives its colour.

Saffron can apparently “provoke laughter and merriment”, which could be useful, but Tournefort’s Herbal [note 1] warns that an overdose may cause people to die of laughing [note 2]. “A lady of Trent… almost shaken to pieces with laughing immoderately for a space of three hours, which was occasioned by her taking too much saffron“. (The WebMD website recommends that you avoid Saffron if you are bipolar.) Large doses of Saffron can cause poisoning and symptoms include  yellow appearance of the skin, eyes, and mucous membranes. More serious are vomiting, dizziness, numbness and bloody diarrhoea and bleeding from the nose, lips, and eyelids. Doses of 12 – 20 grammes can cause death.

The good news is that you’re not going to poison yourself if you use small quantities of Saffron, as in cooking. The BBC Good Food website suggests some recipes, as do the Allrecipes and Rawspicebar websites; a web search will find many more. One of my favourites is Nadine Abensur’s Carrots Braised with Cumin, Saffron and Garlic, which I originally found in my 2004 edition of “The Cranks Bible” – it is a lovely way of honouring home grown, organic carrots and saffron.

Humans have been cultivating Saffron for more than 3,500 years and cultivation probably began in Persia (modern day Iran). The plant is triploid and can only be grown vegetatively. It is not known in the wild but it probably originated from one or more wild Mediterranean species of Crocus, such as Crocus cartwrightianus (from Crete and Greece), Crocus thomasii or Crocus palasii.

Saffron, Crocus sativus, on the allotment

23/10/2018: Stephen Barstow tells me that, in Palestine, the leaves of Saffron have traditionally been added to food as a condiment. Bulbs of several other species of Crocus have also been eaten (often roasted) in Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Palestine.

Notes

1. J.P. de Tournefort, “The Complete Herbal, or the Botanical Institutions of Mr. Tournefort” (1719 – 30). Referenced in “Flowers and their Histories” by Alice M. Coats, published by Adam & Charles Black in 1956.
2. This reminds me of the Monty Python sketch “The Funniest Joke In the World“, which you can watch on YouTube.