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Saffron (Crocus
sativus) has long been among the world’s most costly spices by weight. One grain of commercial saffron contains the
stigmas of nine flower and some four thousand blossoms are required to make one
ounce. The species Crocus sativus first cultivated in Persia descended from wild
saffron Crocus cartwrightianus that was native to Ancient Greece and Crete.
A fragmentary Minoan
fresco from the excavation of Akrotiri on the Aegean island of Santorini shows women
gathering wild saffron as early as the Middle Minoan Period. The frescoes on Santori may have been
produced anywhere between 3000–1100 BCE.
Another portrays a Minoan goddess supervising the plucking of flowers
and the gleaning of stigmas for use in the manufacture of what is possibly a
therapeutic drug. Another depicts a
woman using saffron to treat her bleeding foot.
These are the first visual representations of the ancient use of saffron
as an herbal remedy. This Minoan settlement was destroyed by an earthquake and the
frescoes were preserved by volcanic ash between 1645 and 1500 BCE.
Ancient Greek
legends tell of sailors embarking on a perilous voyage to the remote land of
Cilicia, where they hoped to procure what they believed was the world's most
valuable saffron. The best-known Greek legend about the plant describes it as originating
when a handsome youth named Crocus pursues the woodnymph Smilax who tires of
his advances and turns him into a saffron plant. Its bright orange stigmas were believed to be
an aphrodisiac and a symbol of unrequited passion.
For the ancient
Mediterraneans, saffron gathered around the Cilician coastal town of Soli was
of top value, particularly for use in perfumes and ointments. Herodotus and
Pliny the Elder, however, rated rival Assyrian and Babylonian saffron from the
Fertile Crescent as best—to treat gastrointestinal or renal upsets.[22] Greek
saffron from the Corycian Cave of Mount Parnassus was also of note:[30] the
color offered by the Corycian crocus is used as a benchmark in the Argonautica
of Apollonius Rhodius[N 1] and similarly with its fragrance in the epigrams of
Martial.[31]
Cleopatra of late
Ptolemaic Egypt used a quarter-cup of saffron in her warm baths, as she prized
its colouring and cosmetic properties. She used it before encounters with men,
trusting that saffron would render lovemaking yet more pleasurable.[32]
Egyptian healers used saffron as a treatment for all varieties of
gastrointestinal ailments: when stomach pains progressed to internal
hemorrhaging, an Egyptian treatment consisted of saffron crocus seeds mixed and
crushed together with aager-tree remnants, ox fat, coriander, and myrrh. This
ointment or poultice was applied to the body. The physicians expected it to
"[expel] blood through the mouth or rectum which resembles hog's blood
when it is cooked".[33] Urinary tract conditions were also treated with an
oil-based emulsion of premature saffron flowers mixed with roasted beans; this
was used topically on men. Women ingested a more complex preparation.[34]
In Greco-Roman times
saffron was widely traded across the Mediterranean by the Phoenicians. Their
customers ranged from the perfumers of Rosetta, in Egypt, to physicians in Gaza
to townsfolk in Rhodes, who wore pouches of saffron in order to mask the
presence of malodorous fellow citizens during outings to the theatre.[35] For
the Greeks, saffron was widely associated with professional courtesans and
retainers known as the hetaerae. Large dye works operating in Sidon and Tyre
used saffron baths as a substitute; there, royal robes were triple-dipped in
deep purple dyes; for the robes of royal pretenders and commoners, the last two
dips were replaced with a saffron dip, which gave a less intense purple
hue.[36]
In biblical times
saffron was important as a condiment and sweet perfume. Homer and Theophrastus mention
it in their writings, and Pliny records that the benches of the public theaters
were strewn with saffron and placed in fountains to diffuse the scent into public
halls. Hebrew Scripture compares the
beloved spouse to beautiful enclosed garden of pomegranates, pleasant fruits;
camphire, spikenard, saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of
frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices. (Song of Solomon
4:13-14)
The ancient Greeks
and Romans prized saffron as a deodorizer and scattered it about their public
spaces: royal halls, courts, and amphitheatres. The people spread saffron along the streets of
Rome to honor Nero when he became emperor.
Wealthy Romans partook of daily saffron baths. They used it as mascara,
stirred saffron threads into their wines, cast it aloft in their halls and
streets as a potpourri, and offered it to their deities. Roman colonists took
saffron with them when they settled in southern Gaul, where it was extensively
cultivated until the invasion of Italy in 271 CE.
Gradually saffron
was traded and propagated throughout Eurasia and later brought to parts of
North Africa, North America, and Oceania.
It is best known for the carotenoid pigment, crocin, which gives a rich
golden-yellow hue to dishes and textiles. Today 90% of the world’s production
of cultivated saffron comes from Iran.
Saffron-based
pigments have been found in the prehistoric paints used to illustrate beasts in
50,000-year-old cave art found in modern-day Iraq, which was even then
northwest of the Persian Empire. The ancient
Sumerians used saffron as an ingredient in their remedies and magical potions.
Sumerians gathered their stores from wild flowers, believing that saffron’s
medicinal properties were divine gifts. In ancient Persia, Crocus sativas was
cultivated at Derbena and Isfahan in the 10th century BCE. Saffron threads were
interwoven into ancient Persian royal carpets and funeral shrouds and used by
ancient Persian worshippers as a ritual offering to their deities.
Saffron was scattered
across beds and mixed into hot teas as a curative for bouts of melancholy.
Indeed, Persian saffron threads, used to spice foods and teas, were widely
suspected by foreigners of being a drugging agent and an aphrodisiac. Persian
saffron was dissolved in water with sandalwood to use as a body wash after
heavy work and perspiration under the hot Persian sun. Persian saffron was
heavily used by Alexander the Great and his forces during their Asian
campaigns. They mixed saffron into teas and dined on saffron rice. Alexander
personally used saffron sprinkled in warm bath water, taking after Cyrus the
Great. Much like Cyrus, he believed it would heal his many wounds, and his
faith in saffron grew with each treatment. He even recommended saffron baths
for the ordinary men under him.
Convinced of saffron’s curative properties, Greek soldiers continued the
practice after they returned to Macedonia.
Saffron was among the
other spices that were brought to India by Persian rulers who transplanted cultivars
desired in the gardens across the Persian empire. In the sixth century BCE Phoenicians marketed
the new Kashmiri saffron as a treatment for melancholy and a fabric dye via
their extensive trade routes.
A traditional
Kashmiri legend credits the arrival of the first saffron in India to itinerant
Sufi ascetics who wandered into Kashmir in the 11th century. To this day, grateful prayers are offered to
the two Sufi visitors who are honored as saints in a golden-domed shrine and
tomb dedicated to them in the village of Pampore, India. According to Hindu
religion Lord Krishna used to put Tilak (a mark on forehead) of saffron
daily. Ancient Chinese Buddhist accounts
tell of an Indian Buddhist missionary who was sent to Kashmir in the 5th
century BCE and sowed the first saffron there.
Some historians believe that saffron first came to China with Mongol
invaders by way of Persia. Saffron is mentioned in ancient Chinese medical
texts, including the vast pharmacopoeia that dates from around 1600 BCE. The Chinese medical expert Wan Zhen wrote
that the “habitat of saffron is in Kashmir, where people grow it principally to
offer it to the Buddha.”
Saffron cultivation
in Europe declined steeply following the fall of the Roman Empire. For several
centuries thereafter, saffron cultivation was rare or non-existent throughout
Europe. This was reversed when Moorish civilization spread from North Africa to
Spain as well as parts of France and southern Italy. One theory states that Moors
reintroduced saffron to the region around Poitiers after they lost the Battle of
Tours to Charles Martel in 732 CE. Two
centuries after the conquest of Spain they planted saffron throughout the
southern provinces of Andalucia, Castile, La Mancha, and Valencia.
By the 14th century
the use of saffron for spicing and coloring food in Europe is documented in
recipe books such as the Viandier de
Taillevent written by the royal cook.
In 1478 CE the saffron tax levied by the Bishop of Albi was equivalent
to one twelfth of the production. Saffron
demand skyrocketed when the Black Death struck Europe 1347-1350 CE when it became
necessary import saffron from Greece. Access to saffron was one of the points of
conflict in the growing hostility between the declining landed gentry and the increasingly
wealthy merchant class.
A war started when a
shipment of saffron was stolen by nobles on the route market in Basel, Switzerland. That one 800 pounds of saffron would be
valued at half a million dollars today.
The Saffron War lasted fourteen weeks and the shipment was eventually
returned, but piracy of saffron exceeded piracy of gold in the Mediterranean
waters in the 13th century.
As a result, the nobility began cultivating saffron in Basel, and trade
in saffron made it one of the most prosperous cities in Europe until the European
saffron trade moved to Nuremberg.
Merchants in Venice
continued to control the Mediterranean spices market, trafficking a variety of
spices adulterated with a cheaper product to increase their profit. Authorities
in Nuremberg passed a law to have saffron deloused before arriving in Europe
and merchants were fined, imprisoned, and burned together by immolation. In subsequent years
saffron was fleetingly cultivated throughout England usually on small plots of
well-guarded land. In England and France, saffron production became very
important in the 17th and 18th centuries, reaching a few tons until production declined
due to pandemic fungal diseases destroying bulbs and crops.
This trend was
documented by the Dean of Manchester, Reverend William Herbert who was
concerned about the steady decline in saffron cultivation over the course of
the 17th century and the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The introduction in Europe of easily grown
maize and potatoes steadily took over lands formerly dedicated to growing
saffron. The nobility who were the traditionally
consumers of the expensive product were more interested new arrivals on the
culinary market, such as chocolate, coffee, tea, and vanilla. Production continued only in the more
temperate climate areas of southern France, Italy and Spain.
Saffron was brought
to the New World by Alsatian, German, and Swiss colonists who fled religious
persecution in Europe. They settled
mainly in eastern Pennsylvania, in the Susquehanna River valley, eventually
becoming known as the Pennsylvania Dutch.
The German Schwenkfelders, were great lovers of saffron, having
cultivated it back in Germany. The Pennsylvania Dutch marketed saffron to
Spanish colonists in the Caribbean, making it comparable to the price of gold on
the Philadelphia commodities exchange in the 18th century. The Pennsylvania
Dutch used saffron in their cakes, noodles, and chicken or trout dishes, but they also used it medicinally.
From antiquity into modern times saffron has been used in folk medicine to treat stomach upsets, bubonic plague, and
smallpox. It was used for its
carminative for suppressing cramps and flatulence, as an emmenagogic to enhance
pelvic blood flow, to treat respiratory disorders, coughs and colds, scarlet
fever, smallpox, cancer, hypoxia, and asthma.
It was used to treat numerous other diseases including blood disorders,
insomnia, paralysis, heart diseases, stomach upsets, gout, chronic uterine
hemorrhage, dysmorrhea, amenorrhea, infant colic, and eye disorders. For the ancient Persians and Egyptians
saffron was an aphrodisiac, an antidote against poisoning, a digestive
stimulant, and a tonic for dysentery and measles.
Today saffron
remains one of the world’s most expensive spices. Its medicinal use is primarily for asthma,
cough, whooping cough (pertussis), and to loosen phlegm (as an expectorant). It
is also used for sleep problems (insomnia), cancer, “hardening of the arteries”
(atherosclerosis), intestinal gas (flatulence), depression, Alzheimer’s
disease, fright, shock, spitting up blood (hemoptysis), pain, heartburn, and
dry skin. Women use it to alleviate menstrual
cramps and premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Men use it to prevent early orgasm
(premature ejaculation) and infertility.
It is also used to as an aphrodisiac) and
to induce sweating.
