Poppy seed

Poppy seed is an oilseed obtained from the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum).

The tiny, kidney-shaped seeds have been harvested from dried seed pods by various civilizations for thousands of years. It is still widely used in many countries, especially in Central Europe and South Asia, where it is legally grown and sold in shops. The seeds are used whole or ground into meal as an ingredient in many foods – especially in pastry and bread – and they are pressed to yield poppyseed oil.

Across Europe, buns and soft white bread pastries are often sprinkled on top with black and white poppy seeds (for example cozonac, kalach, kolache and kołacz). The seeds of the Czech blue poppy (food safety cultivars Papaver somniferum) are widely consumed in many parts of Central and Eastern Europe. The sugared, milled mature seeds are eaten with pasta, or they are boiled with milk and used as filling or topping on various kinds of sweet pastry. Milling of mature seeds is carried out either industrially or at home, where it is generally done with a manual poppy seed mill.

Blue poppy seeds are widely used in Austrian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, German, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Turkish and Ukrainian cuisines.

The states of former Yugoslavia (notably North Macedonia and Serbia, but also Croatia and Bosnia) have a long tradition of preparing poppy seed pastry (štrudla, baklava, pajgle) and dishes (pasta with poppy seeds). In Slovenia blue poppy seeds are used in traditional dishes such as prekmurska gibanica and makova potica.

In Poland, Hungary, Lithuania and Eastern Slovakia, a traditional dessert is prepared for the Christmas Eve dinner from poppy seeds. They are ground and mixed with water or milk; round yeast biscuits (kūčiukai in Lithuanian; opekance or bobalky in Slovak) are soaked in the resulting poppy seed 'milk' (poppy milk) and served cold.

In Central Europe, poppy strudel is very popular, especially during Christmas. In Germany, Poland and countries belonging to the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, poppy seed pastries called Mohnkuchen are often eaten around Christmas time.[11] Recipes for Mohnstriezel use poppy seed soaked in water for two hours[12] or boiled in milk. A recipe for Ukrainian poppyseed cake recommends preparing the seeds by immersing in boiling water, straining and soaking in milk overnight.[13]

Jewish cuisine In Eastern European Jewish cuisine, pastries filled with black poppy seeds in a sugary paste are traditional during Purim, which occurs exactly one month before Passover and approximately a month before Easter. Traditional pastries include poppy seed kalács and hamantashen, both sometimes known as beigli (also spelled bejgli). Poppy seed hamantashen were the main traditional food eaten by Ashkenazi Jews at Purim until the filling was replaced by other fruit and nut fillings. Poppy seed pastries are common in Jewish bakeries and delicatessens throughout the United States.

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