History of saffron foods, saffron stigmas were also soaked in water to yield a golden-yellow solution that was used as a fabric dye. Some historians believe that saffron first came to China with Mongol invaders by way of Persia. Saffron is mentioned in the ancient Chinese medical text "Shennong Ben Cao Jing", believed to be from the 3rd century AD (but attributed to mythological emperor Shennong). Yet the Chinese were referring to saffron as having a Kashmiri provenance. The Chinese medical expert Wan Zhen wrote that "[t]he habitat of saffron is in Kashmir, where people grow it principally to offer it to the
Saffron Hill Saffron Hill Saffron Hill is a street in the south eastern corner of the London Borough of Camden, between Farringdon Road and Hatton Garden. The name of the street derives from the fact that it was at one time part of an estate on which saffron grew. In 1850 it was described as a squalid neighbourhood, the home of paupers and thieves. In Charles Dickens's 1837 novel "Oliver Twist", the Artful Dodger leads Oliver to Fagin's den in Field Lane, the southern extension of Saffron Hill: "a dirty and more wretched place he [Oliver] had never seen. The street was