That saffron was as much employed in seasoning dishes as for a perfume, appears from the oldest work on cookery which has been handed down to us, and which is ascribed to Apicius. Its use in this respect has been long continued, and in many countries is still more prevalent than physicians wish it to be. Henry Stephen says, “Saffron must be put into all Lent soups, sauces, and dishes: without saffron we cannot have well-cooked peas481.”
It may readily be supposed that the great use made of this plant in cookery must have induced people to attempt to cultivate it in Europe; and, in my opinion, it was first introduced into Spain by the Arabs, as may be conjectured from its name, which is Arabic, or rather Persian482. From Spain it was, according to every appearance, carried afterwards to France, perhaps to Albigeois, and thence dispersed into various other parts483. Some travellers also may, perhaps, have brought bulbs of this plant from the Levant. We are at least assured that a pilgrim brought from the Levant to England, under the reign of Edward III., the first root of saffron, which he had found means to conceal in his staff, made hollow for that purpose484. At what period this plant began to be cultivated in Germany I do not know; but that this was first done in Austria, in 1579, is certainly false. Some say that Stephen von Hausen, a native of Nuremberg, who about that time accompanied the imperial ambassador to Constantinople, brought the first bulbs to Vienna, from the neighbourhood of Belgrade. This opinion is founded on the account of Clusius, who, however, does not speak of the autumnal saffron used as a spice, but of an early sort, esteemed on account of the beauty of its flowers485. Clusius has collected more species of this plant than any of his predecessors; and has given an account by whom each of them was first made known.
In the fifteenth and following century, the cultivation of saffron was so important an article in the European husbandry, that it was omitted by no writer on that subject; and an account of it is to be found in Crescentio, Serres, Heresbach, Von Hohberg, Florinus, and others. In those periods, when it was an important object of trade, it was adulterated with various and in part noxious substances; and attempts were made in several countries to prevent this imposition by severe penalties. In the year 1550, Henry II., king of France, issued an order for the express purpose of preventing such frauds, the following extract from which will show some of the methods employed to impose on the public in the sale of this article486: “For some time past,” says the order, “a certain quantity of the said saffron has been found altered, disguised and sophisticated, by being mixed with oil, honey, and other mixtures, in order that the said saffron, which is sold by weight, may be rendered heavier; and some add to it other herbs, similar in colour and substance to beef over-boiled, and reduced to threads, which saffron, thus mixed and adulterated, cannot be long kept, and is highly prejudicial to the human body; which, besides the said injury, may prevent the above-said foreign merchants from purchasing it, to the great diminution of our revenues, and to the great detriment of foreign nations, against which we ought to provide,” &c.
[The high price demanded for saffron offers considerable temptation to adulteration, and this is not uncommonly taken advantage of. The stigmata of other plants, besides the true saffron crocus (Crocus sativus), are frequently mixed with those which are genuine; moreover, many other foreign substances are added, such as the florets of the safflower (Carthamus tinctorius), those of the marigold (Calendula officinalis), slices of the flower of the pomegranate, saffron from which the colouring has been previously extracted, and even fibres of smoked beef. Most of these adulterations may be detected by the action of boiling water, which softens and expands the fibres, thus exposing their true shape and nature. The cake saffron of commerce appears entirely composed of foreign substances. Great medicinal virtues were formerly attributed to saffron. Its principal use is now as a colouring matter.]
FOOTNOTES
471 [The stigmata of Botanists.]
472 Plin. lib. xxi. cap. 6. Geopon. lib. xi. cap. 26, and Theophrast. Histor. Plant. lib. vi. cap. 6, where Joh. Bod. von Stapel, p. 661, has collected, though not in good order, every thing to be found in the ancients respecting saffron. The small aromatic threads, abundant in colour, the only parts of the whole plant sought after, were by the Greeks called γλωχῖνες, κροκίδες, or τρίχες; and by the Romans spicæ. They are properly the end of the pistil, which is cleft into three divisions. A very distinct representation of this part of the flower may be seen in plate 184 of Tournefort’s Institut. Rei Herbariæ, [or in Stephens and Churchill’s Medical Botany.]
473 On this account we often find in prescriptions, Recipe croci Orientalis. …
474 Jena, 1670, 8vo.
475 See Beroald’s Observations on the 54th chapter of the Life of Nero by Suetonius; and Spartian, in the Life of Adrian, chap. 19.
476 Lucan, in the ninth book of his Pharsalia, verce 809, describing how the blood flows from every vein of a person bit by a kind of serpent found in Africa, says that it spouts out in the same manner as the sweet-smelling essence of saffron issues from the limbs of a statue.
477 Petron. Satyr. cap. 60.
478 Of the method of preparing this salve or balsam, mentioned by Athenæus, Cicero, and others, an account is to be found in Dioscorides, lib. i. c. 26.
479 Plin. lib. xxix. cap. iv.
480 Martial, b. xiii. ep. 43, praises a cook who dressed the dugs of a sow with so much art and skill, that it appeared as if they still formed a part of the animal, and were full of milk. A dish of this sort is mentioned by Apicius, lib. vii. cap. 2. The same author gives directions, book vii. chap. i. for cooking that delicious dish of which Horace says, op. i. 15, 41, “Nil vulva pulchrius ampla.” Further information on this subject may be found in the notes to Pliny’s Epistles, lib. i. 15; Plin. lib. xi. c. 37; Martial. Epig. xiii. 56; and, above all, in Lottichii Commentar. in. Petronium, lib. i. cap. 18.
481 Apologie pour Herodote, par H. Estiene. A la Haye, 1735, 2 vols. 8vo.
482 Meninski, in his Turkish Lexicon, has Zae’ feran, crocus. Golius gives it as a Persian word. That much saffron is still cultivated in Persia, and that it is of the best kind, appears from Chardin. See his Travels, printed at Rouen, 1723, 10 vols. 12mo. iv. p. 37. That the Spaniards borrowed the word safran from the Vandals is much more improbable. It is to be found in Joh. Marianæ Histor. de Rebus Hispaniæ. Hagæ, 1733, fol. i. p. 147. The author,