[Sca-cooks] Fw: [MR] Red saffron source

[Maggie MacDonald]

So how do you tell, by looking, the difference between saffron and safflower?

Maggie.

Adamantius said:
>Hey there...
>
>Please forward as needed. I've cc'd David W.
>
>My own experience is that I am still trying to think of ways to use the
>kilo of safflower stamens that a kind, well-meaning friend picked up for
>me in Turkey. I haven't been able to bring myself to tell my friend he
>got a deal that was too good to be true, so much of my saffron-related
>cookery involves me spiking a large pinch of the safflower with a
>smaller pinch of real saffron (woo hoo, I'm an adulterer!).
>
>Anyway, just on the off-chance that suspiciously inexpensive saffron is
>in fact safflower (which does indeed grow in Turkey, also: I know in
>Lebanon it is called osfor; dunno what it might be called in Turkey),
>one should be careful of this because, while safflower can be used for
>coloring rice, etc., it is the pollen that does most of the work, and
>seems to be largely exclusive to real saffron. Rice (or whatever)
>colored with safflower (which, BTW, is sometimes called Mexican saffron
>or azafran, which is confusing since actual saffron is also called
>azafran in Mexico) tends to produce a very pale yellow to white rice
>with reddish threads in it. It is like red sandalwood; you need a fair
>amount very finely ground to get an effect.
>
>Hope this helps. And, of course, I may be wrong and this may be real
>saffron. I just doubt it a little.
>
>Adamantius, who buys a one-ounce tin in the Indian grocery for about 22
>bucks once a year or so