Zafferano

The Phoenicians brought saffron to Spain, where it was to become an essential ingredient in certain rice dishes and broths; to Provence, where it later on flavoured and coloured the bouillabaisse; and to England, via the Cornish tin trade, where it naturalized.

The orange stigmas, three per flower, of this wild crocus have become the most expensive spice in the world. I mention it because it is a characteristic of the Catalan paella, to which it gives a marvellous colour, and because its cultivation, though diminishing, is carried on in the neighbourhood of Tarragona and in the Balearic Islands.