History of Saffron - North American

North American

Saffron made its way to the New World when thousands of Alsatian, German, and Swiss Anabaptists, Dunkards, and others fled religious persecution in Europe. They settled mainly in eastern Pennsylvania, in the Susquehanna River valley. These settlers, who became known as the Pennsylvania Dutch, were by 1730 widely cultivating saffron after corms were first brought to America—in a trunk. It was owned by German adherents of a Protestant sect known as the Schwenkfelder Church. Schwenkfelders, as members were known, were great lovers of saffron, and had grown it back in Germany. Pennsylvania Dutch saffron was soon being successfully marketed to Spanish colonists in the Caribbean, while healthy demand elsewhere ensured that its listed price on the Philadelphia commodities exchange was set equal to that of gold.

However the War of 1812 destroyed many of the merchantmen that ferried American saffron abroad. Pennsylvanian saffron growers were afterwards left with surplus inventory, and trade with the Caribbean markets never recovered. Nevertheless, Pennsylvania Dutch growers developed many uses for the now abundant saffron in their own home cooking—cakes, noodles, and chicken or trout dishes. Saffron cultivation survived into modern times principally in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.