The following was received via email: My question is about poppy for food, I use quite a bit of it. I have relatives in Poland when they visited us and ate Canadian poppy they were disgusted with it They said their poppy is lot better then ours. So I read about it and it says that only Papaver somniferum L. is used for cooking. What kind of poppy do they use? thanks for the information
Well, it is true that P. somniferum are the type of poppy used for edible seed throughout the world. I suppose there are regional variations in the cultivars grown. I doubt that there is any commercial production of poppy seed in Canada, so the ones you eat here are probably imported. You might want to shop around for better tasting seeds.
I wonder about the age of some of the spices I buy. Maybe they get very fresh seeds. Considering how easy they are to grow maybe you could grow your own.
Is the poppy species somniferum legal to grow? (not that I'd let a technicality stop me). I thought this was the type grown in Afghanistan for opium.
