A grizzled sentinel stoops in a purple field. He works alone in the brown soil. As far as the eye can see there is nothing but this old man and hills rising from the Spanish plains to an infinite horizon.
That, and the precious flowers he picks for hours on end.
A cigar clamped between his teeth is his only diversion. Ancient blue wool hangs over his slumping shoulders as he mechanically stoops, plucks and plunks. Silently, the delicate, cup-shaped blossoms drop into a worn, soft, floppy basket that seems like it has been used in a thousand harvests. Home entertainment guru Martha Stewart would give her eye teeth for it, the better to casually arrange on a sideboard buffet with breads or sheaves of grain spilling forth, recalling the time she bought it for a song from an old man picking saffron in Spain.
But the old man isn`t much for strangers-apart from a shake of the head, his only reply to a visitor`s greeting is to keep his head down and keep on picking.
”It`s hell on their backs…misery for the knees,” says Fernando P. Morillo Casals, commissioner general of Axafran del Espana SA, one of Spain`s foremost exporters of the spice.
For about 150 years, Casals` family has capitalized on the rural ethic, acting as broker between growers and wholesale exporters. For a brief season each fall, farmers divert from other labors to gather the subtly fragrant, lilac-colored flowers that bear a precious cargo: delicate stamens which are dried and roasted for use in a variety of culinary, medicinal and spiritual purposes.
By handling some 10,000 to 12,000 pounds of saffron annually, Azafran de Espana SA accounts for about 11 percent of the world`s total production. But for farmers who grow and process the world`s most expensive spice, the pinch is still felt, Casals says.
”Life here is very hard,” he says, wind slapping our backs as we glance down the stark, parceled rows of farmland and clay-tiled roofs that fill the endless plains of Mancha. The empty vanes of the windmills at which Don Quixote-”the man of La Mancha”-once tilted, hover motionless overhead.
”This is a poor country. In just 10 to 15 days, you have a small crop that costs a great deal of money. But it helps to make a living.”
First thought to be used in Kashmir or Iran, the Arabs or possibly the Phoenicians initially brought the bulblike crocus corms (underground stems) to Spain somewhere between the 8th and 10th Centuries. The always modest Romans cast saffron like rose petals in the path of oncoming emperors. So precious did saffron become that death penalties were imposed for its smuggling or adulteration.
Origins may be lost, but, if anything, reverence has only swelled. Today saffron represents only a fraction of Spain`s agricultural economy, although more than 80 percent of the world`s supply (some sources place it closer to 90 percent) originates there.
”Spain is virtually the sole source for America`s supply of saffron,”
says Tom Burns, spokesman for the American Spice Trade Association, a group which represents most of the nation`s importers. Although his organization doesn`t break down regional use of saffron, Burns says he won`t argue with Casals` assessments-that Arabs and Middle Eastern countries are the world`s largest consumers (in Kuwait, saffron flavors coffee; in China it`s used as medicine; the Indians reserve it largely for weddings and religious rituals)
and that California is America`s No. 1 market for saffron. ”Nearly 50 percent of (his firm`s) sales go to California. They are first to recognize quality and want to experiment,” Casals says.
Polly Murray, manager of consumer affairs for Baltimore-based McCormick Co., the nation`s largest dealer in spices and herbs, says that others traditionally show interest.
”The Pennsylvania Dutch often put a stigma or two in the water when cooking potatoes-it gives pretty color to the potatoes and a nice flavor. That`s a simple way to use it. Rice dishes may be the primary use, but Scandinavians use it in a saffron bread.”
Sales of saffron are simultaneously significant and minor, says Murray. Its rarity and price make it an important purchase for homemakers-a glassine envelope containing .06 ounces of saffron sealed in a glass jar retails for $9.79-but compared to other spices, it`s a statistical blip.
”We buy pepper by the ton,” says Murray. ”Saffron is bought by the kilo (2.2 pounds) in tin boxes the size of cookie jars.”
Just how much saffron America consumes is up in the air, Burns adds.
”The imports are so small (compared with other goods) the U.S. Customs Department doesn`t break them out.
”Asking for saffron imports in numbers in tons is like asking me `how many tons of diamonds were imported last year?` ”
Estimates vary, but Burns places 1988 imports of saffron at between 8,000 and 9,000 pounds. ”Compare that with black pepper-America brings in an average of 32,000 metric tons a year.”
Still, ”interest has clearly grown; the demand keeps creeping up,” he adds.
Cosmic irony therefore follows: 1988 was the poorest harvest in 20 years. ”You are arriving in a very unusual year,” says Casals. ”When saffron is fully in bloom, the fields are full of color.”
This harvest, late last year, the fields were mostly brown.
”Too much rain in the spring and not cold enough now,” he explained last autumn while conducting visitors on a harvest tour of Consuegra, a small town near Toledo in Mancha, one of the nation`s chief growing regions.
Normally, each bulblike crocus corm produces four to six flowers. During last year`s season (roughly, a two-week period during October) the average yield was two to three blooms per plant.
Each flower produces three red stigmas, the fragile central ”posts” in the center of the bloom and the only part of the plant used for saffron. It takes from 100,000 to 200,000 stigmas to yield one pound of saffron.
Touch the stamen and yellow streaks your hand. The fragrance is a profoundly sweet perfume-inexplicably aromatic.
Hand-picking-indeed, an entire operation which is, from start to finish, performed virtually totally by hand-is what drives the price of saffron into the spice stratosphere.
”It`s not uncommon at the import level for a pound of saffron to approach $1,000,” says Burns. He hastens to clarify such figures as estimates; federal law prohibits his quoting specific figures, which could establish or ”fix” prices.
Watching the process in Mancha lends vivid perspective to the reality of saffron growing. For most families, raising or processing saffron is a way to supplement meager farm incomes.
After they are picked, baskets of flowers are carried to kitchen tables or benches in home courtyards. Elderly women and young children gather to peel the flowers. At the home of one grower, Leonardo Alvarez, in nearby Menbrilla, his wife Anna Maria demonstrates the art: Blossoms are rapidly folded back, fully exposing the saffron stigmas, which must be plucked clean from the plant. These are then stacked on dishes until there are enough to dry.
Speed is of the essence. It can take six or eight people a full morning of hustling to pick upwards of 200,000 petals-the amount it takes to weigh out a pound or so of stamens. Work must be done during the pre-noon cool or the quality is marred. In turn, stamens must quickly be plucked or they wither and spoil.
Which is how contests are born.
On the day we toured, local women gathered at the Consuegra town hall to compete in a saffron-peeling spree.
Some of the fastest peelers in town took their places at a long series of tables covered with white paper. At each station, mounds of lilac crocuses-75 per person-sat next to a saucer. Contestants, most of them elderly women in dark sweaters, were given a signal: First one to finish, based on speed, cleanliness and least broken stigmas and stray blossoms (”empties,” Casals called them) won $130-a king`s ransom in central Spain.
A stern man in an olive green sweater issued the windiest set of rules this side of the Pillsbury Bake-Off. When he finally gave it a rest, contestants` fingers flew. I bet on a girl in pink, fingernails frosted to match. She had style-with rapid care her hands folded back the petals of each crocus and deftly plucked the stamens from the base. She gave a quick, studying glance before discarding each blossom, dropping the prize quarry into the saucer. All this in seconds.
Others caught up, but she stayed ahead. Sift, sift, sift through the
”empties” – she`s up on her feet …”
”Uno!” the judge declared.
Later, roasting will remove the moisture from saffron. Long, slow time in the oven, usually performed in home kitchens, eliminates moisture which would hasten spoilage. But while roasting develops and enhances saffron`s intense and unique flavor, and brings out the characteristic color-a variegated ruby- gold-burnt-orange shade reminiscent of bittersweet-roasting also reduces the net weight by almost 80 percent.
So when Alvarez`s son drags out two sacks of saffron the size of king-size pillows, visitors whistle and gasp. It`s crunchy-brittle to the touch, dry but not stiff. Offered a taste, some of us gladly accept a single stamen: aromatically bitter, decidedly medicinal, vaguely sweet.
”Last September, one exporter had 110 kilos (about 230 pounds) ready to be exported, near Consuegra” Casals recalls. ”It disappeared.”
But it would be very difficult to put this saffron on the market, he adds.
”To absorb it evenly and quietly would be impossible,” Casals says.
”We (traders) know each other very well.”
”As much saffron is probably stolen as is sold,” says Burns. ”Loss of saffron is a considerable problem to the industry. Stealing even a little can mean a big profit for someone. The security has to be very tight and very closely monitored.”
Which explains why supermarket spice shelves increasingly carry signs that read ”saffron available at cash register.”
”Not all stores will carry it,” says McCormick`s Murray. ”But ask your store manager if you don`t see it. It`s probably kept in his office.”
For its esthetic and monetary value, perhaps it should be kept in a safe.
