Saffron I Am
I think you hit the nail on the head: saffron, a great descriptor. Not sure why but it seems apropos. I've only used saffron once in cooking. It is pungent and expensive. To tell the truth I don't think it made the slightest bit of difference in the meal. And probably one of the strangest spices, actually the dried stigmas of the saffron flower, "Crocus Sativus Linneaus". Each flower contains only three stigmas. These filaments must be picked from each flower by hand, and more than 75,000 of these flowers are needed to produce just one pound of Saffron filaments, making it the world's most precious spice. Now I'm not saying I'm precious, "rarely used" would probably be more accurate. I remember vividly the day in my youth when I had to go to the store to buy saffron for a recipe called Portuguese Chicken, which was my step mom's specialty. I thought it was so weird that it came in a plastic vial and cost so much. It doesn't makes sense. It doesn't belong on the same spice rack as the rest of the spices. Can anyone even describe what saffron tastes like? Or if they taste it know what they are tasting? I'm kind of like that. Can I be described? If you get to know me, do you really know me? I'm an interesting spice to have in the house but I'm not going to be used on a daily basis rather I'm the anomaly spice. When your elegant friends decide to cook dinner at your house and they get there and start making a stupendous meal but get halfway through it when they exclaim, "Oh damn, we forgot to bring the saffron. Do you have any by chance?" You then pull your plastic vial off the shelf and say with a confident grin, "Why yes. Gotta have the saffron!"
By the way I recently heard that cumin should never be added to uncooked salsa, so don't do it.
