Marigold

• imeruli shaphraniიმერული ზაფრანა

  Georgian

• kviteli kvavili

  Georgian

Very mild — faintly bitter and resinous with a floral background — and easily lost in a dish carrying anything assertive. Its practical role is colour, and the aroma is a bonus rather than the purchase.

Mild, resinous and slightly green, with a faintly medicinal edge that the whole plant carries much more strongly than the dried petals do. It is a quiet spice and is not bought for its smell.

A vivid yellow-orange powder that colours strongly. The pigments are carotenoids and are fat-soluble, so it colours a stew better than it colours a broth.

A fine powder that disperses readily and stains everything it meets.

• Lutein and other carotenoids — The yellow-orange colour, and the reason the spice exists. Carotenoids are fat-soluble and light-sensitive, which governs both how to cook with it and how to store it.
• Tagetone and limonene — The mild resinous aroma. Both are far more prominent in the leaf and the whole plant than in the dried petals.(what limonene is)

Put it in with a fat phase if the dish has one. The pigments are carotenoids and dissolve in oil rather than water, so marigold stirred into a watery broth colours it patchily and marigold bloomed in the fat of a stew colours it evenly. Use it for colour and do not expect flavour: it is a mild spice, and a dish that wants a floral aroma is better served by something that has one. And keep it in the dark — this is the single most light-sensitive entry in the catalogue after saffron.

A component of khmeli suneli and, through it, of Georgian cooking generally — satsivi, kharcho, walnut sauces, chicken dishes and the yellow-tinted sauces of Imereti. Its function is colour first and a mild resinous aroma second. Outside Georgia it is used as a saffron colourant substitute, honestly in some places and less so in others.

• blooming — The carotenoids are fat-soluble, so a moment in warm oil or in the fat of a stew disperses the colour far more effectively than stirring the powder into a watery liquid.
• boiling — Holds through long cooking. The colour is stable to heat if not to light, so a marigold-coloured stew stays coloured.
• grinding — Sold ground. Whole dried petals exist and are less convenient and no better.

Look at it. Marigold is bought for colour and a faded powder has failed, whatever it smells like. Vivid yellow-orange is good; buff or khaki is finished.

• A pale buff or khaki colour
• No resinous aroma at all
• Caking

• Photodegradation of the carotenoid pigments
• Volatilisation of the resinous aroma fraction
• Oxidation towards a flat dusty character

Ground, and in a small opaque jar. The usual argument for whole spices does not apply to a petal that is bought for its pigment and that will be dispersed in a stew either way. What does apply is light: buy an opaque container, keep it in a cupboard, and replace it when the colour goes, because a faded marigold is not a weaker spice but an inert one.

• A vivid yellow-orange, not buff. This is a colour spice and its colour is the test.
• Petal-only material rather than powder containing ground green flower base, which is duller and more bitter.
• Sold as culinary marigold or Imeretian saffron by a food supplier — not petals from an ornamental source.
• An opaque container, since light is what destroys it.

Asteraceae

An annual to about half a metre with strongly scented divided leaves and dense double flower heads in yellow and orange. It is one of the most widely grown garden annuals in the world, which is why the culinary use surprises people.

Mexico and Central America, where Tagetes species are native. The culinary use described here is Georgian and postdates the Columbian Exchange.

• Georgia — major producer. Imereti and western Georgia in particular, where it is largely a garden and smallholding crop.
• Mexico — origin. The centre of origin of the genus, with an entirely separate ceremonial rather than culinary tradition.

Flower heads picked at full bloom and the petals separated.

1. Picking — Flower heads picked in full bloom.
2. Petal separation — Petals pulled from the head and the green base discarded.Why: The green receptacle is bitter and contributes nothing; petal-only material is the mark of a well-made product.
3. Shade drying — Petals dried in shade.Why: Sunlight destroys the carotenoid pigments that are most of the point.
4. Grinding — Dried petals milled to a fine yellow-orange powder.

Marigold is more often an adulterant than a target: it is one of the plant materials documented as bulking out or imitating saffron, alongside safflower and dyed fibres. Sold honestly under its own name it is an inexpensive spice with no incentive to adulterate.

Grown as an annual, largely in gardens and on smallholdings rather than in commercial plantation. Georgian supply is domestic and informal.

Warm summers and adequate water. Tagetes is easy to grow across most temperate and subtropical climates, which is why it has become a global garden plant.

Tagetes is American, so the Georgian tradition cannot predate the Columbian Exchange — which makes marigold one of the clearest examples in this catalogue of a New World plant becoming so embedded in an Old World cuisine that it is now read as ancient. Chilli in South Asia and paprika in Hungary are the same story at larger scale. The name Imeretian saffron reflects a colour and a price relationship rather than any botanical one.

Barely traded. Georgian supply is domestic and informal, and export volumes are negligible.