Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Spice guide to Poppy Seeds along with all the Poppy Seeds containing recipes presented on this site, with 59 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cornish recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain as a major flavouring.

Poppy Seeds are the seeds of the annual plant Papaver somniferum (the opium poppy), a member of the Ranunculales (buttercup) family. This is a very ancient spice, known to have been cultivated for at last 5000 years and there is some indication that the culinary use of poppy seeds extends much further back in time (the seeds have been found in many ancient burials).

The seeds of the poppy are widely used as the popular 'poppy-seed' found in and on many food items such as bagels, muffins and cakes and breads. The seeds can be pressed to form poppy seed oil, which can be used in cooking (though these days it is more commonly used as a speciality salad dressing). The name Papaver is Latin for the poppy plant (it is from this that the modern English name 'poppy' derives) and somniferum means 'sleep-inducing' in Latin. This is probably due to the opiates in the seed-pod of the poppy. The seeds only contain trace amounts of this drug (not enough to affect humans even if large amounts are consumed) though the sensitivity of modern drug tests may mean that consuming a large number of poppy-based products (about five poppy-seed bagels) could lead to the failing of a drug test.

Poppy seeds have a pleasant and nutty flavour, which intensifies upon baking (which is why poppy seeds are used as a topping for many baked goods). Interestingly, poppy seeds are a good source of linolenic acid, which is an essential compound in the human diet.

The Ancient Romans loved cakes and sweetmeats made or filled with poppy seeds. Upon the division of the Roman Empire, these sweetmeats kept being baked in the Byzantine Empire. From there, this method of cooking entered the Islamic states of the Near East. The Ottoman Turks then introduced the sweetmeats to Eastern Europe, from where they entered the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Even today, strudel stuffed with a poppy seed paste (Mohnstrudel) is a feature of Viennese cuisine. From central Europe, poppy seed fillings entered Yiddish cuisine, a good example being Homentashn [‫המנטאַשן‬] (Poppy Pockets).

Outside Europe and the Middle East, poppy seeds are also used as thickeners and flavourings in the cuisines of Northern India (a special variety with white seeds has been developed there to thicken pale sauces). It is also an important ingredient in the Japanese seven-spice blend, shichimi togarashi.

One very ancient recipe from Europe is a cake based on ground poppy seeds.