Magic and ceremonial saffron
Only three tiny threads, but have to see the importance that can have ...
Beautiful as few see an extension purple crocus flowers open to the sun is something that is unmatched.
Nor has it the tough task of collecting their stamina.
is not surprising that reach market prices reached, and whose campaign of collection, if it was good, it can prove to be the full salary and full of an entire people, an entire year.
Takes chestnut!
Also known as "red gold of La Mancha", the yellowing of unmistakable flavor of saffron is essential for all paella or not lovers.
But ...
Did you know the importance and quasi ceremony that saffron is tied to certain oriental rituals? 
Especially Persians?
NO? Well I'll tell you.
After
Originally Mediterranean, saffron is a bulbous variety of family Iridaceae of beautiful purple and orange stamens intense magical scent back in catapún sprang forth generation Spontaneous few drops of blood, when Hermes (yes, that was God) accidentally killed his friend Crocus. (That was not God, so the palm, of course. There are always classes ...) As Ovid's account in his " The tragedy of Crocus and Smilax "
Well, the point is that beyond you there, past and love the friendly-Chandri .., saffron began to be valued as a palliative in different diseases (to compensate, you see ...), and highly recommended for other causes.
So much so that in the palaces of Minoan Crete (pictured) may be fresh in the task of collection has been shaped.
talked about the years 1600-1500 BC.
Elsewhere can be found as an offering in funerary rituals.
Taken infusion was considered the melancholy away (now we call depression) and also had narcotic effects. ((The dose cure for depression: 30 mg per day, divided in 2 doses))
Employee, of course, for cosmetic purposes (to be asked but 
our friend Cleopatra , who occasionally gave him a dyer chapucete skin and, incidentally, she says, "love was made more enjoyable ..." )
. And medicinal uses and for food flavoring purposes , the most curious is the almost sacramental or magical aspect that came to acquire the saffron flower.
And we know also appreciate Alexander and members of his army had, it was considered great for healing wounds.
and add more. Due to the magical beliefs that were around him, thought that smearing their armor with saffron powder, they would not even have wounds ... saffron Thanks to them came to Greece.
Image: Jasmina Alaoui
But the best, and what was considered FETEN of all is for everything that had to do with the marriage bed ... (Failing: wasteland) (Because, if you do not have the first, the second is as good as any other, hear-).
Hence the Mesopotamian place-perhaps the longest established the use of this plant, " be put as Tato as saffron, for that to stimulate else (not specify what kinds of ... ahem ...)
Or the Romans who, after walking up and down the heath happy and self-consolidating the matter, once officially entered into bed marriage, being jumped on that which coated cylinder in orange dust, so to ensure a legitimate offspring ...
but also used as a flavoring for wine, and Roman women, as flirty them: as an eye liner.
But what I find the summum is that in ancient Rome the saffron employed as filler for pillows, even a little, after the sumptuous banquetones, with the false assumption of avoiding a hangover.
Yes, but more than nothing prevented because just thinking about the bill could not sleep a wink!
The point is that, although today it is in Spain from where the bulk of global production ... as I said at the beginning, saffron is deeply connected with the Eastern culture and ceremonies.
And, once the saffron eastern route began taking the leap 
Mesopotamian from Persia to India and from there his rise to Kashmir, his employment benefits combat the melancholy and kidney disease, caused the plant was so curious gained such popularity and consideration, even in death rituals, which, after the death of Buddha Siddhartha Guatama , the monks decided to use from then on the color of saffron as an official color of their robes.
you know?
Well, the thing does not stop there.
way!
Dubbed in the east: "sweet gold, saffron is deeply linked within the Eastern culture to a ceremonial symbolism. Especially in the Persian culture.
image: Amelie Vuillon
The "Scholeh sard, a rice pudding made with rosewater, almonds and saffron, is taken in the ceremonies of mourning.
And the pie "halwa", made of semolina and saffron, is distributed among relatives, neighbors and the needy, for 3 days after the death of the deceased, and after 7 th day and 14 º (. .. no wonder, in Western culture ... we pray, that they should pray with his pink saffron)
But not only the thing goes dead. Fortunately. Also the birth of a baby is celebrated with saffron, cream though, and called "katschi", with which-way-they regain strength to the mother, preparing for what is coming ...
We, Spain, the use of saffron we came through the Arabs back in the tenth century
And it would be Venice in the Renaissance, where the saffron came to be considered the most expensive spice in the world. And yet there was slapped hard for it.
saved more than one with its vapor disinfectants during the Black Death epidemic. But also became head cost more than another during the reign of Henry VIII , who considered adultery kilo of saffron, mix marigold or the like, was reason enough and just to lose his head.
Jesus, what a character!
course, a few centuries earlier, in the Middle Ages, adulterate it was a matter of being buried alive.
Ridiela! That's much worse!
Yo, why you want to tell you, I prefer to stay with the most voluptuous of the invention itself, one that sings the Solomon the "Karkom" or saffron in The Song of Songs :
Image: Jasmina Alaoui
"garden enclosed you, my sister, my bride,
spring shut, a fountain sealed.
Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits,
flower henna and nard,
Nardo and saffron, calamus and cinnamon,
with all trees of frankincense;
myrrh and aloes, with all chief spices. "
Or even, why not more humorous that can be heard singing to the girls in our operetta "The rose of saffron "
"The pruning of the Rose"
( Sagrario, Catalina and chorus)
All .
great pink paring
I do not praise me, because I have no boyfriend
to pull the nail.
Tabernacle.
The rose of saffron
is as great,
that one day sees the birth
and kills the same day.
Catalina.
I married a tailor
not be bad,
and air needle
I caught a cold.
All .
La, la, la, laralala.
La, la, la, la, la, la ...
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