SC - Cressee webbed

[david friedman]

At 11:21 PM +0200 7/3/00, Cindy M. Renfrow wrote:
>True saffron was sometimes adulterated with safflower.  (Perhaps Francesco
>Sirene has more info on this practice?) Safflower gives a good yellow
>color, but no flavor that I can detect. It also has the benefit of being
>inexpensive.  I prefer using it in all my dishes that call for saffron.

Do we know that this was done in period?

I don't like saffron, but prefer simply using small quantities, 
rather than substituting.  The obvious problem with using safflower 
in all dishes that call for saffron is that the original would have 
had the saffron flavor, so if you want to reproduce the taste of the 
original as well as the color, you need saffron--unless there is good 
evidence that medieval cooks routinely used safflower instead.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/