If you read yesterday's Toronto Star, you saw article about a Saffron Museum!http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/travel/Saffron_is_mountain_village_s_spice_of_life.html?siteSect=415&sid=5293362&cKey=1220517614000&ty=st Purse Museums -Saffron Museums-what next?
135 saffron growers in Mund Switzerland, a tiny village in southern Switzerland spend time on the steep hillsides growing and harvesting the world's most expensive spice. Saffron has been grown in Switzerland since the 14th century but today it's grown only in Mund- the northern most place in Europe where saffron flourishes- in a canton known for other superlatives like the Matterhorn, and Visperterminen-Europe's highest vineyards.
In Mund, you get saffron risotto, saffron bread, and creamy saffron soup at the Restaurant Jagerheim.
A saffron museum opened in October 2007 in a 15th century wooden house here.
"Does it pay off? No," Rohmeder: a pharmacist who now makes Munder Gold, a saffron liqueur, says candidly.
"Nobody is rich here, nobody is poor. Everyone makes as much money as they want and as most have sheep. It's an ideal pre-Marxist society There's no reason to accumulate capital."
Interesting, making as much money as they want. Something makes me think that the accumulation of material wealth is not high on the list of their priorities since they spend their time painstakingly collecting the stamens of the flowers for saffron. 130 flowers result in one gram of saffron, that is a lot of work. Most of the saffron is produced for the village.
I think that someday, I will visit museum's of the world the great ones in terms of size but also the quirky.
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