I love experimenting with spices. Love. I have my favorites such as sage & thyme for pasta sauces or oregano & parsley when I’m whipping up a Mexican dish, but there’s nothing quite like discovering a new way to, well, spice things up. Thankfully my husband shares my passion for cooking, tasting and being plain old adventurous with food - so this week we’re experimenting with saffron.

Saffron has been cultivated by people for thousands of years, though for a while it was more valued for it’s color than it’s taste. Derived from the flower saffron crocus, it was purportedly used 50,000 years ago to create the yellow dyes in cave paintings. Eventually it was cultivated and traded throughout Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean basin, finding it’s way into foods, medicines and even magic potions. Cleopatra bathed in saffron scented water, Alexander the Great used it on his battle wounds, and Greek courtesans added it to their perfumes and mascaras, not to mention divine offerings. It’s easy to see why saffron was so valuable in ancient times: not only did it taste good, but the golden color it produces is reminiscent of gold. Indeed, that is likely why a saffron-gold hue has been associated with joy and happiness in Near and Middle Eastern cultures for a very long time. Today saffron is by far the most expensive spice in the world, costing $20 for less than a tenth of an ounce. And it’s no wonder considering it takes an acre of land containing thousands of flowers to produce only a few pounds of the spice.

Probably the most common application of saffron, cuisine-wise, is as an ingredient in a wide variety of rice dishes. As we browsed through recipes, I was surprised to discover how often it appears in Sephardic culture, where it has become a traditional food on Friday nights and a holiday tradition. I’m going to veer off on a slight tangent here to tell you that the Sephardim are Jews who come from Spain and Portugal. I’ve recently developed a keen fascination with their history and especially their historical language: Ladino, which is a mixture of Hebrew and Castilian Spanish. It’s a beautifully lyrical tongue, an example of which you can listen to in one of my favorite songs, “Ija Mia Mi Kerida.” (You can also download it in a zip file here)

Rice, being white, easily absorbs all the gorgeous color saffron has to offer so we decided to make “Arroz con Azafran,” literally meaning “Rice with Saffron.” It’s a simple sounding dish… until you realize that it’s served with a mouth-watering fruit topping of raisins, apricots, dates and caramelized onions. Now that’s what I call good eats! (Yes, we are AB devotees.)

Saffron Rice with Fruit Topping (Arroz con Azafran)