We don’t often have cookery on this blog, but the Iron Age demonstration in August has piqued Alan’s interest. Alan writes….
I was interested to attend the demonstration of Iron Age cookery by Caroline and Tom of Pario Gallico – Historical Food and Crafts, at the museum earlier this month. Part of the demonstration was a preparation of a stew, for their lunch.
The items shown on the table are potential ingredients for the stew. I asked Caroline what the blue things in the pot at bottom right (Fig. 1) were, and she said ‘poppy seeds from opium poppies’. I asked her whether one didn’t become intoxicated from ingesting poppy seeds, and she replied that the opioids are destroyed by cooking. She suggested making poppy seed brioche with them and recommended using plenty of butter.
Well, I’ve been saving poppy seed myself with the intention of sowing them. However, when I returned home I emptied them out and was intrigued to note that most of them were black, a few were golden brown and others were blue (in the red tray, Fig 2).
One of my projects will be to see if the colour of the seeds correlates to any particular colour of the flowers.
I was still interested to understand more about the toxicity of opium poppy seeds and did a little research.
The opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, (Fig 3) has had a very long tradition of use, dating from the Neolithic, hence the legitimacy of its incorporation into an iron-age stew. This long period of time has allowed the development of a broad range of different forms and nowadays fifty-two botanical varieties are recognised.
Papaver somniferum is grown commercially for three main purposes. The first is to produce edible seeds for humans, secondly to produce morphine, the principle alkaloid of opium, for use by the pharmaceutical industry, and thirdly, to produce other alkaloids, mainly thebaine and oripavine, that are processed by the pharmaceutical industry into drugs such as hydrocodone and oxycodone. Each of these applications requires its own special varieties. In particular, and obviously, the pharmaceutical industry requires varieties yielding a high content of alkaloids, whereas the food industry demands as low an alkaloid content as possible.
The morphine content in poppy seeds can vary enormously, this depending on factors including: the exact type of seeds, the harvesting time, and how well they are washed. Poppy seeds sold in bulk in supermarkets are not controlled for the amount of opiates in them, but rather for their flavour and appearance, as they are intended to be used for baking, a process which destroys the alkaloids.
Poppy opioids are not an intrinsic component of the seeds but get adsorbed to them from other parts of the poppy, particularly the capsule, during the collection process. Hence, if one wishes to make poppy seed tea for example, which is an infusion, one has to wash the seeds, not to become affected. This is not so important when baking since, as mentioned above, the alkaloids are destroyed by baking.
Before leaving this topic, it is worth mentioning that Caroline described the materials of the clothes she was wearing, important when one is so close to an open fire. Her shirt and underskirt are made of linen whilst her jerkin and skirt are made of wool. Both these are relatively non-flammable fabrics. Natural cotton is also fire-resistant.
I’m off now to make some poppy seed brioche, ensuring to take Caroline’s advice and use loads of butter. There are recipes on the internet.
Thank you Alan! Let us know how it turns out…