Saffron noted as hay-like and sweet. Saffron also contributes a luminous yellow-orange colouring to foods. Saffron is widely used in Persian, Indian, European, and Arab cuisines. Confectioneries and liquors also often include saffron. Saffron is used in dishes ranging from the jewelled rice and "khoresh" of Iran, the Milanese "risotto" of Italy, the "paella" of Spain, the "bouillabaisse" of France, to the "biryani" with various meat accompaniments in South Asia. One of the most esteemed use for saffron is in the preparation of the "Golden Ham", a precious dry-cured ham made with saffron from San Gimignano. Common saffron substitutes include safflower
Saffron in such Levantine cities as Sidon and Tyre in Lebanon. Aulus Cornelius Celsus prescribes saffron in medicines for wounds, cough, colic, and scabies, and in the mithridatium. Saffron was a notable ingredient in certain Roman recipes such as jusselle and conditum. Such was the Romans' love of saffron that Roman colonists took it with them when they settled in southern Gaul, where it was extensively cultivated until Rome's fall. With this fall, European saffron cultivation plummeted. Competing theories state that saffron only returned to France with 8th-century AD Moors or with the Avignon papacy in the 14th century AD. Similarly,