Poppy

 Description

• Tiny nutty-tasting, blue-gray seeds inside capsules on Papaver sominiferum,  yellowish-brown opium plant indigenous to the Mediterranean

•     Ripe seeds

•     Papaveracea (poppy family)

•     Nutty and pleasant

•     Stems from West Asia
•     Cultivated in Europe
•     Earliest plants cultivated by men

•     Native to Mediterranean regions, India, China, Turkey, and Iran
•     Holland and Canada are the main producers of poppy seeds today

•     Store in cool, dark, dry places

•     Ancients valued poppy for the oil obtained from it’s seeds; yet the narcotic and analgetic power of opium was well known to Greek medicine
•     Poppy oil is an unusual specialty and is produced only in small quantities today
•     In Northern India ground poppy seeds are common thickening agent in the moghul cooking
•     Poppy’s nutty taste is loved by the Japanese and used for the subtly flavoured dishes