What is saffron?

Answer 1

It's a herb that is yellow. Usually used in paella to make the rice yellow and give it that flavour.

Answer 2

Saffron threads come from the crocus flower - it is so expensive because it takes many of them to make an ounce, for example.

Answer 3

The world's most costly spice. It's the pistil of a variety of crocus flower and must be harvested by hand, it takes about 10,000 flowers to yield 1 oz. of dried saffron.

Answer 4

An expensive spice used in cooking. More below....

The trade and usage of saffron reaches back more than 3,000 years[1] and includes marketing for medicinal, culinary, and colourative applications. Saffron, a spice derived from the dried stigmas of the saffron crocus (Crocus sativus), has remained among history's most costly comestibles. With its bitter taste, hay-like fragrance, and slight metallic notes, saffron has been used as a seasoning, fragrance, dye, and medicine. Saffron is native to Southwest Asia,[2][3] but was first cultivated in Greece.[4]

In both antiquity and modern times, most saffron was and is used in the preparation of food and drink: cultures spread across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas value the red threads for use in such items as baked goods, curries, and liquor. Medicinally, saffron was used in ancient times to cure a wide range of ailments, including stomach upsets, bubonic plague, and smallpox; in modern times clinical trials have shown saffron's potential as an anticancer and anti-aging agent. Lastly, saffron has been used to colour textiles and other items, many of which carry a religious or hierarchical significance.

Saffron cultivation — as in ancient times — predominantly centres on a broad belt of Eurasia bounded by the Mediterranean Sea in the south-west to Kashmir and China in the north-east. Thus, the major saffron producers of antiquity — Iran, Spain, India, and Greece — continue to dominate the world trade. In recent decades cultivation has also spread to New Zealand, Tasmania, and California

Answer 5

Saffron is a spice often used in many many places... And i know it as used in spanish Paella its very strong... Happy Saffron!

Answer 6

its an expensive spice that looks like a flower,you can also get a saffron shirt which is dyed using the spice
http://www.greekproducts.com/greekproducts/saffron/index.html

Answer 7

saffron comes from the crocus flower the stamen are hand picked. northern india produce the best

Answer 8

The yellow-orange stigmas from a small purple crocus flower. It's the world's most expensive spice; each flower provides only three stigmas, which must be carefully hand-picked and then dried, an extremely labor-intensive process. It takes over 14,000 of these tiny stigmas for each ounce of saffron.

Cheers

Answer 9

its a yellow spice from a stamen of a saffron plant

Answer 10

It's a precious spice, which gives a very delicate flavour, and a yellow colour to dishes it's used in. It comes from the stamen of a certain type of crocus.

Answer 11

saffron is a spice. it adds a lovely flavour to fish and rice dishes. its quite expensive in this country.