SC - Cressee webbed

[Jenne Heise]

> >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 believe that we do. Certainly Safflower was a known adulterant and cheap
substitute. Obviously the substitution would be difficult to conceal, but
it was sometimes used by the parsimonious in cases where the color was
more important than the taste.

To give a period reference, 

the Internet sourcebook: 
Al-Tankh: 
Ruminations and Reminiscences, c. 980 CE
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/980al-atanukhi.html

"     Mutawakkil [Caliph, r. 847-860] desired that every article whereon
his eye should fall on the day of a certain drinking-bout should be
colored yellow.
     Accordingly there was erected a dome of sandalwood covered and
furnished with yellow satin, and there were set in front of him melons and
yellow oranges and yellow wine in golden vessels; and only those
slave-girls were admitted who were yellow with yellow brocade gowns. The
dome was erected over a tesselated pond, and orders were given that
saffron should be put in the channels which filled it in sufficient
quantities to give the water a yellow color as it flowed through the pond.
This was done, and as the drinking-bout was protracted their supplies of
saffron were exhausted and safflower was used as a substitute, they
supposing that he would be intoxicated before this was exhausted, or they
could incur reproach."


Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at tulgey.browser.net
disclaimer: i speak for no-one and no-one speaks for me.
   "My hands are small I know, but they're not yours, they are my own"