• Saffron is the most costly spice used in gourmet cuisine.Spoon filled with saffron image by Han van Vonno from Fotolia.com
  
  Gourmet cuisine uses only the most coveted and expensive ingredients. The labor-intensive processes necessary to harvest saffron, vanilla and cardamom make them very costly spices and, thus, prized in fine dining.
  
  

Saffron

• Saffron, the most expensive spice, is commonly used in gourmet cooking. The spice, which has a slightly salty and bitter flavor, comes from the ground stigmas of the saffron flower. No other spice can replicate saffron's taste. Saffron's high cost stems from its labor-intensive harvesting. To produce one pound of saffron spice, more than 200,000 stigmas are needed. The saffron harvest occurs within a 15-day period when blossoms are at their peak. The flowers must be picked, and the stigmas separated, by hand. Stigmas must be dried for seven days, and then carefully packaged to protect them from humidity and light.
  
  

Vanilla

• The second most costly spice desired by gourmet chefs is vanilla. The vanilla orchid produces a thin pod that, when dried, gives a sweet and delicate flavor to treats ranging from ice cream to baked goods. The vanilla bean's harvest is also laborious and time-consuming. The orchid blossoms only open for a few hours on one day a year. Commercially harvested vanilla must be hand-pollinated. Pollinated pods need up to nine months to reach maturity, at which time they are hand-picked. They are then cured for six months.
  
  

Cardamom

• Cardamom, the third most expensive gourmet spice, is the ground seed of a tropical fruit. The plant, commonly grown in India, Ceylon and Guatemala, produces pods that contain seeds. Cardamom, often used to flavor curries, coffee and baked goods, has a pungent and intense flavor. Cardamom combines well with cinnamon and cloves to produce a refined flavor and aroma. Like saffron and vanilla, cardamom is difficult to harvest and, therefore, quite expensive. Cardamom plants are harvested when the plants are at least three years old. The pods must be picked when they are three-quarters ripened.