The Science of Spice

198 Spice Profiles

The plant

Opium poppy is a

summer-flowering annual

herbaceous plant that can

grow to 1.2m (4ft) high.

Black

The blue-black variety of seeds

is the most widely cultivated.

The hard raw seeds have a mild

taste and almost no aroma.

Seed pods have

a ribbed outer

shell containing

several chambers

holding hundreds

of tiny seeds

Ripe pods

make a

rattling sound

when shaken

Leaves can

be cooked

and eaten

like spinach

BOTANICAL NAME

Papaver somniferum

ALSO KNOWN AS

Opium poppy, maw seed.

MAJOR FLAVOUR COMPOUND

2-Pentylfuran.

PARTS USED

Seeds.

METHOD OF CULTIVATION

Seed pods are harvested mechanically in the

autumn when the petals fade and the seed

heads turn from green to yellow-brown.

COMMERCIAL PREPARATION

The pods are dried, then cracked open to

collect the seeds.

NON-CULINARY USES

Poppy seed oil is used in the cosmetics

industry. Several painkillers and sedatives

are manufactured from the plant’s unripe

seed pods.

1 gram

contains

about 3,300

tiny seeds

POPPY

Nutty | Mild | Green

Poppy seeds were cultivated as early

as 3,500 BCE by the Sumerians of

modern-day southern Iraq, and later,

in around 2,000 BCE, the Hittites of

Anatolia used them in breadmaking.

In a first-century novel by Petronius,

a wealthy Roman serves dormice at his

banquet, glazed in honey and rolled

in poppy seeds. Through Arab traders,

poppy cultivation spread along the

Silk Road from Arabia and Persia

to India and China. Although its use

declined after the fall of the Roman

Empire, the spice regained popularity

in Europe in the Middle Ages. The

botanical name “somniferum”

translates as “sleep bearing”, and

refers to the use of the plant to

produce the drug opium. However,

opium is made from the “sap” of

unripe seed pods rather than from the

ripe seeds used for cooking, which do

not have the same effect.

Spice story

Region of cultivation

Native to the western Mediterranean

and southwest Asia, poppy is cultivated

in the Netherlands, France, the

Czech Republic, Turkey, Iran, India,

China, and Canada.

TURKEY

INDIA

IRAN

CHINA

CZECH

REPUBLIC

NETHERLANDS

FRANCE

Seeds appear

round at first

glance, but

are in fact

kidney-shaped

White

The pale variety of seeds is

popular in Indian cooking and is

most often ground to add richness

and as a thickener for sauces.

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