Vanilla and Saffron
Kate Humble's journey takes her from the Atlas Mountains of Morocco to the plains of Spain as she uncovers the story of the world's most expensive spice, saffron, before crossing the Atlantic to Mexico in search of vanilla, a spice discovered by the famous Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes.
In the Atlas Mountains, October is saffron harvest month for the Berber people. Kate joins local saffron farmer Ahmed and his family to harvest their crop and visits a stunning store house carved into the mountainside.
Worth 4,000 pounds a kilo, saffron is also known as red gold and inspires countless imitations. In Spain, Kate turns detective as she joins a blind tasting to sort out genuine saffron from the fakes and meets a man who tests its DNA in order to make sure it's genuine.
The Berbers of Morocco took saffron to Spain in the Muslim conquest of the 8th century, and 800 years later it was an ambitious Spaniard that brought us the next exotic taste, vanilla. It's now so widespread that it has become the world's most popular ice-cream flavour.
Kate journeys to Paplanta in Mexico, the birthplace of vanilla, to meet the Totonac - the original guardian of the spice. She witnesses a spectacular death-defying fertility dance and meets the people determined to keep Mexican vanilla alive in the face of the massive competition from other producers.
Trailer
Recently Updated Shows
Lost Treasures of Egypt
An immersive, action-packed series follows international teams of Egyptologists as they unearth the world's richest seam of ancient archaeology — Lost Treasures of Egypt. Through excavations and unprecedented access to the teams on the front line of archaeology, we follow these modern-day explorers as they battle searing heat and inhospitable terrain to make the discoveries of a lifetime.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
12-year-old modern demigod Percy Jackson has just come to terms with his newfound supernatural powers when the sky god Zeus accuses him of stealing his master lightning bolt. Now Percy must trek across America to find it and restore order to Olympus.
Mayor of Kingstown
Mayor of Kingstown is set in a small Michigan town where the only industry remaining are federal, state, and private prisons, the story follows the McLusky family, the power brokers between the police, criminals, inmates, prison guards and politicians, in a city completely dependent on prisons and the prisoners they contain. It is a stark and brutal look at the business of incarceration.
Twisted Metal
Twisted Metal is about a motor-mouthed outsider offered a chance at a better life, but only if he can successfully deliver a mysterious package across a post-apocalyptic wasteland. With the help of a trigger-happy car thief, he faces savage marauders driving vehicles of destruction and other dangers of the open road, including a deranged clown who drives an all too familiar ice cream truck.
Yellowjackets
Yellowjackets follows a girls' high school soccer team. In 1975, the Dearborn High Yellowjackets became the first team in state history to qualify for the Girls' U.S. Soccer Championship Series in Manchester, NH. They never got the chance to compete. Equal parts survival epic, horror story and pitch black coming of age, Yellowjackets tells the story of the (un)lucky survivors of a plane crash deep in the Ontario wilderness, chronicling their descent from a friendly, cooperative team to warring, cannibalistic clans. At the same time, it follows the lives they've attempted to piece back together nearly twenty-five years later, proving that the past is never really past and what began out in the wilderness is far from over.