by Pietro Valdiserra

Do you know the yellow Milanese risotto, with a delicious good smell of saffron, a historical source of pride of the cuisine from Milan, that risotto which Pellegrino Artusi included in his recipe book in three versions in 1891? Well, now forget it and concentrate your attention on saffron. According to the Greek mythology saffron was born thanks to the love of a beautiful young man, whose name was Krokos. He fell in love with the nymph Smilace, who was protected by god Hermes. The numen turned the young man Krokos in the beautiful flower of saffron (krokos, in Greek) to take revenge on him. Passing from legend to history, saffron was even known millenniums ago. It is mentioned in the Egyptian papyri of the II century before Christ, in the Bible and in the Iliad. Virgil, Pliny and Ovid cite it in their works. Isocrate had his pillows perfumed with saffron before going to bed and women from Troy used it to perfume the floors of their temples. The cultivation spread from Asia throughout many areas of the world as far as in Tunisia and, from here, to Spain. Just from Spain it arrived to Italy thanks to the Dominican monk Santucci, who was from the small town of Navelli in Abruzzi. About 1230, the synod which introduced the Inquisition took place in Toledo. At that time Santucci was a member of the court. He was a great fan of canonical laws and gastronomy. Santucci fell in love with the small saffron plant and he took it to Navelli, thinking that it would adapt to the climate of his land. In fact saffron found a very favourable habitat in Abruzzi and in a short time the cultivation spread to the outskirts of L’Aquila where they started a profitable trade with big merchant cities like Venice, Milan, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Vienna and Marseilles. With the arrival of the Bourbons the cultivation spread and it covered 450 hectares whereas after the unity of Italy a period of slow decline started and it stopped only in the first years of the Seventies in the Nineteenth century. Now saffron is used greatly in all the restaurants and by all the families in Italy and many other countries in the world. For alimentary purposes only the stigmas of the flowers are used, on the market they are in the form of filaments (in this case they are simply dried) or they can be in powder (in this case they are dried and then they are pulverized). Their colour is red-orange, their smell is particular, it’s intense and the taste is bitter and strongly aromatic. When the red of the stigmas enters into contact with a liquid it turns into a deep yellow, that colour which has made the traditional Milanese risotto really unmistakable. In the past saffron was used greatly in pharmacopoeia. In fact it is a very good stimulant for appetite, a cough sedative, an analgesic for gums, a stimulant for gastric motility and some people think that it is also an aphrodisiac. Besides it is rich in vitamin A, B1 and B2, it is included in the composition of sedatives and antispasmodics and in some galenicals. Finally it is balsamic against ulcers and it seems to be useful to strengthen the brain and memory. In cosmetics it is used as a smelling dye whereas in cuisine it is used to prepare risottos, small gnocchi, the bouillabaisse, the “cacciucco” (a typical seafood dish) and in the preparation of curd of some cheeses, both Italian and French. Saffron is also a precious ingredient to prepare liqueurs. In Civitaretenga, in the Navelli plain, the ZAFF 99 elixir is produced. This name is the result of the union of the prefix of the Italian word “zafferano” (i.e. saffron) and number 99 which reminds us of the foundation of L’Aquila with its 99 areas. It is a natural alcoholic drink, based on extracts of rare and uncontaminated herbs among which the unmistakable taste of saffron prevails. The colour of ZAFF 99 is a deep yellow. It is a very good eupeptic, a tonic and a thirst-quencher. You can drink it all the days of the year, in winter it fights cold with a cup of mulled wine whereas in summer it can be used as a base for cocktails or small quantities can be poured into a cup of ice-cream. Also in the other Italian regions, where the cultivation of this beautiful rosy-violaceous flower has spread, it is possible to find saffron liqueurs: for example in Umbria (like the productions of Giusto Magrelli and of La Romita farm in the Fuino Valley) and in Sardinia (the “Yellow Villacidro” liqueur produced by Murgia). The most famous producer is Strega Alberti in Benevento who always adds saffron in the alcoholic infusion of his historical Strega liqueur.