A sought-after spice

Just a pinch of the spice, grown and dried as deep red threads, can transform the flavour of a multitude of dishes while also adding a golden glow.

Yet its nickname as the golden spice is more in reference to its price tag, which is the highest on a dollar per gram basis in the world.

While saffron has been predominantly associated with Middle Eastern cookery and been grown in particular climates, a Perth man has discovered that the South West of Western Australia is in a suitable environment to grow the sought-after spice.

And WA scientist Terry Macfarlane can attest to the intensive labour required to grow and harvest the crop which has made saffron the most expensive spice in the world.

Over the past 20 years he has managed to successfully cultivate a crop of saffron in Manjimup, after suspecting the climate may be suitable for growing the quality food ingredient.

A botanist by trade, Terry had a great awareness of a variety of plants that could be grown on a small scale.

It was this knowledge that he called upon while living in Manjimup in the mid 1990s.

While working there, Terry and wife Andrea had a small acreage west of the town, and he went looking for a suitable crop to grow on it and create an enterprise that had a significant value.

“Being only a small piece of land, I wanted to grow something that could be sold for reasonable returns,” Terry said.

“I knew about saffron, but I didn’t think it was available in Australia, and I also knew that it was very difficult to bring new crops into the country due to our strict quarantine laws.”

Upon doing more research Terry discovered that the spice, native to South West Asia and mostly imported by Australian businesses, was being grown successfully in New South Wales, as well as quite extensively in Tasmania.

The Tasmanian operation, known as TasSaff, was a co-operative where growers were supplying the product, which was then being processed in big enough quantities to secure supply contracts with supermarket chains and compete with imported products.

Terry made contact with TasSaff and set about obtaining some saffron bulbs, known as corms, although unsure as to whether they would grow in WA.

“Tasmania is further south than Manjimup, and much cooler, and I thought the saffron may require a winter chill to set them,” he said.

“Even though it is commonly grown in the Mediterranean and Southern Asia, where winters are cold, they don’t require a winter chill to flower.”

Terry planted them, they grew and flowered, but he still remained unsure as to whether this was a residual effect from them flowering in Tasmania.

He resolved to wait a couple of years to see if they still responded.

A member of the iris family, they were a natural sterile hybrid, meaning they didn’t produce seeds, which required him to dig them up and divide the daughter corms, and he also experimented with different ways of treating them.

Terry continued to build up his crop, slowly but surely, and succeeded in growing small quantities of the spice.

“The seasons vary quite a lot – sometimes you don’t get a crop, and other years you get a very good one,” he said.

The flowering period is very short, taking place over a two-week period around late April through to early May, meaning Terry had to be on hand to harvest the flowers straight away.

The actual saffron threads are the bright red stigmas and styles picked from the centre of the pretty purple Crocus sativus flower, commonly known as the ‘saffron crocus’.

They grow during winter, dying off around September/October, and are in the soil in autumn when the flowers come up through the bare ground, then the leaves.

Terry said the saffron grew over the winter rainfall period underground, and it had become apparent to him that the crops were more dependent on temperatures than rainfall.

“It’s the most incredible sight, these purple flowers out of the bare ground before the leaves,” he said.

The flowers each last a day before collapsing and dying away.

Even more incredible was the sight of the long, red, well-developed stigma in the centre of the flower and the yellow anthers contrasting with the purple flowers.

“They are very colourful,” Terry said.

He said the whole flower was picked, not just the stigma, which was then pinched out by hand before being dried in a food dryer, allowing them to be easily stored for long periods – should they remain unused for that long.

Terry said in the Middle East the stigmas were dried out over heated brasiers, over charcoal which roasted them at the same time and brought out their flavour.

It is the very hands-on attention required for the harvest of the spice which Terry said meant it was mostly grown by small family enterprises, as it was too labour intensive to grow on a large scale.

A majority of crops were in Spain, Greece/Macadonia, Iran, Northern India, and the foothills of the Himalayas where they eat most of what they grow.

It lent itself to a range of cuisines, including Thai cookery, Moroccan, Spanish, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and English, most of which were savoury dishes.

And while he didn’t grow it to service his own requirements, Terry said he had experimented with the spice since he started growing it, and really enjoyed the subtle flavour it brought to a dish.

He said some people mistakenly believed saffron was all about the yellow colouring that emerged from the stigma when it was wet- think saffron rice – which meant a variety of synthetic, cheaper colourings were often substituted in its place.

“It’s actually not about the yellow colour though, saffron is about the subtle flavour it brings to a dish,” Terry said.

There was no doubt saffron was a quality ingredient and he has received enquiries from top restaurants seeking the spice.

Initially he was reluctant to do so, concerned he may not be able to guarantee continued supply due to the huge variation that could be experienced from the annual harvests.

But Terry is no longer concerned about that, choosing to see what each season brings and then supplying what he has.

“People like the idea that it is grown locally,” Terry said.

“There is a really strong theme around at the moment among restaurants and local people where they want to enjoy and celebrate the finer locally grown produce.

“There is certainly a local market for saffron in restaurants as well as in ethnic communities.”

Saffron is just one of a beautiful range of produce grown in southern WA, which is celebrated by the Southern Forests Food Council established in 2010.

The consortium includes growers marketing local produce from Manjimup, Pemberton, Walpole and Northcliffe under the “Genuinely Southern Forests” brand, which continues to grow.

This produce was celebrated in a book, ‘Food of the Southern Forest’, published by chef Sophie Zalokar who owns Foragers Field Kitchen and Cooking School at Pemberton.

Terry said as well as his saffron featuring in the book, he had supplied saffron to Foragers where an entire menu was built around it as a feature ingredient.

Although these days he resides in Perth, Terry said he was fortunate to have a family member live locally to be able to keep a close eye on his beloved saffron crop as well as ensuring they weren’t overrun by winter grass weeds while growing.

Sometimes the picking, which can involve tending to a few thousand flowers, coincides with Easter, and he is on-hand to help out.

Having had a reasonable harvest this year, Terry is planning to lift all the corms, after which he will decide whether to split them and replant them ready for next year, or whether he chooses not to continue with the crop and instead sell them.

Either way, he believes there is scope for more saffron growers in the south west, given the strength of WA’s food culture and restaurant scene.