Sister-in-law has asked me if any of my A4A friends can answer following question.
Can you use poppy seeds from garden in cooking?
(Well I do keep telling family that A4A members can answer anything :))
Thanks.
found this on a site
While they may not meet the standards of Holland, it is possible to harvest your own poppy seeds for cooking. The spectacular flowers in your garden are rewarding enough but if you allow the seed pod, or capsule, to remain on the plant until it has dried out and the plant's leaves are dying, you can gather the ripened seeds for the kitchen. You'll know that the seeds are dry when you can hear them rattling about in the capsule but another clue is when a circle of half moons open up and away from the top. Then you can snip the stem, shake out the seeds and have a decorative poppy capsule for dried flower arrangements. (See author's note below.)
For culinary purposes you will want to make sure that you have the Oriental variety. As stated above, this is the Papaver somniferum or Papaver orientale. The seed capsules are rounded and about the size of a walnut. And, as always when using flowers in the kitchen, you should have grown them yourself without pesticides or other chemicals.
the common poppy that most people have in their garden is this country is the flanders poppy (corn poppy) and is good for flowers but not for eating the seeds.
if you tie a paper bag over the seed head before it opens you wont get insects in it
lbb
Quote from: littlebabybird on September 16, 2008, 01:02:45
if you tie a paper bag over the seed head before it opens you wont get insects in it
lbb
what a good tip :)
Many thanks HD have sent to sister-in-law.
It is the opium poppy 'Papaver somniferum' which is grown for seeds to be used in cooking and baking.
I grow 'Hungarian Blue Breadseed Poppies' available from chiltern seeds for this purpose. If you buy poppyseeds or any food product containing poppyseeds they will usually be from this variety.
http://www.chilternseeds.co.uk/chilternseeds/211/moreinfo/pid/31500037
Thanks Baccy Man, more for Chris to read.
Driving from Poland into the Czeck Republic (sp?) last year, I was amazed by seeing vast fields of opium poppies into the distant horizon. After the first assumption that they were rivalling Afghanistan, I realised it was for poppy seed. I plan to try them next year for sprinkling on bread, etc. (We make our own bread).
And they all fall off??