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Path: utzoo!utcsri!utai!utflis!chai
From: chai@utflis.UUCP (Henry Chai)
Newsgroups: net.cooks
Subject: Re: Saffron
Message-ID: <227@utflis.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 28-Jul-85 23:58:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: utflis.227
Posted: Sun Jul 28 23:58:23 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Jul-85 01:41:35 EDT
References: <216@utflis.UUCP> <3345@drutx.UUCP> <969@mtgzz.UUCP>
Reply-To: chai@utflis.UUCP (Henry Chai)
Organization: FLIS, University of Toronto
Lines: 22
Summary: 

In article <969@mtgzz.UUCP> seb@mtgzz.UUCP (s.e.badian) writes:
>
>	For your information, most true saffron comes from Spain
>(why do you think they use it in paella?). It probably costs more
>than gold by the ounce. Saffron is the stamens(or is it the pistils?)
>of a particular crocus. How they ever figured out to use such a thing
>in cooking is beyond me.
>
>Sharon Badian
>ihnp4!mtgzz!seb

My thanks to Sharon Badian and also Betsy Cvetic @ drutx for answering
my question about saffron.  As to why they used this herb (spice?),
I believe I have read somewhere that in the olden days in Spain they
used to use *REAL GOLD* to make paella, but it got too costly since the
gold was not recoverable. So they substituted saffron instead.
Nowadays maybe it *is* cheaper to use real gold .....

-- 
Henry Chai 
Faculty of Library and Information Science, U of Toronto
{watmath,ihnp4,allegra}!utzoo!utflis!chai