Louisville Medicine Volume 64, Issue 12 | Page 16

BOOK REVIEW SECRETS OF SAFFRON - THE VAGABOND LIFE OF THE WORLD’S MOST SEDUCTIVE SPICE By Pat Willard Beacon Press, Boston, 2001 Reviewed by M. Saleem Seyal, MD, FACC, FACP Spend the day merrily, O Priest Put unguent and saffron oil together to thy nostrils And garlands and lotus flowers to your be- loved’s body - Ancient Egyptian Banquet Song O n a recent trip, I picked up this delightful slender book with an intriguing title in one of the many used book stores in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. Pat Wil- lard, an acclaimed food writer and the author of this compellingly readable book, is in love with the beguiling, exotic foreign spice, Saffron, that has bewitched humans since antiquity. Describing her excitement regarding her own painstakingly hand-nurtured, home-grown saffron garden in Brooklyn, New York, she writes, “One morning, the (crocus) blossoms began to unfurl. I gave a yelp, and ran for an old plant saucer, and then I began to pick….” The quest for spices including cinnamon, ginger, mace and many others have lured and compelled adventurers and invaders of all sorts over several millennia. Most of these spices have now be- come ubiquitous in contemporary kitchens. Saffron still remains a tantalizing, mysterious and exotic spice that is quite expensive and sometimes even scarce, particularly the un-adulterated, pure ver- 14 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE sion. Modern horticulture rules are not applicable to its cultivation since the plant called “saffron crocus”- Crocus Sativus- has to be grown under specific weather conditions and bears only four fragile purple blossoms/flowers, each with three vivid crimson stigmas or styles called threads, which have to be carefully and painstakingly plucked manually within a brief window of time. The dried threads are used as a seasoning, food-coloring, as an ingredient of soothing beverages, and for medicine. The book opens with an introduction titled as “The Heart of the Matter” and relates a Greek Mythology story of Crocus, a mortal human prince, and Smilax, an immortal nymph who entices him. Crocus is smitten by her, but Smilax eventually got wary of him due to his undue adoration and transformed him into a small purple flower with a fiery heart. The origins of crocus sativus- the Saffron plant... “in an ill-tempered girl and her bothersome sweetheart” must have made a certain sense, considering where it grows naturally. The Saffron plant nourishes and thrives in the Mediterranean, soaking up the summer sun. Usually in October, “the saffron crocus unfurls in a burst of sudden purple radiance… A cry lets out, the bells ring, and workers rush into the fields shuffling up and down and across the rows of blossoms, gathering as many as they can before the midday sun wilts the crocus’s petals and melts its sated heart.” All plants bloom within a one to two-week period and approximately 150