[Sca-cooks] poppyseeds?

[Stefan li Rous]

Gianetta asked:
> I was just eating breakfast (poppyseed muffin) when it occurred to me
> that I haven't seen any medieval recipes calling for poppyseeds.
> It could be that I just wasn't looking, but were they used?
Poppy seed oil is mentioned.

Probably more poppyseeds used in the Middle East than Europe.

Here is a recipe from the dates-msg file in the Florilegium:
> Take fresh ripe dates freshly harvested for immersion and spread the 
> out in
>  the shade and air for two days.  Then remove their pits from the 
> bottom, using
>  a packing needle or sharpened stick, and put excellent peeled sweet 
> almonds in
>  place of all the pits.  For every ten pounds, take two pounds of 
> honey and
>  thin it with two ounces of rosewater.  Put it up on the fire, and 
> when it
>  boils, remove its scum.  Then colour it with half a dirham of saffron 
> and
>  throw the dates in it.  And when it boils, stir them nicely, lightly, 
> so that
>  they absorb the honey.  Then take them down from the fire and spread 
> them out
>  in a tray of briar wood.  When they have cooled off, sprinkle them 
> with spiced
>  finely pounded sugar.  If you want them to be heating, it is with 
> musk,
>  spikenard and a bit of [hot] spices [afawih].  If you want them to be 
> cooling,
>  spice them with camphor and a little poppy seed.  Put them up in 
> glass vessels
>  and only use them during the chilly season and when fresh date season 
> is over.
>  -- Kitab Wasf al-At=92ima al-Mu=92tada (The Description of Familiar 
> Foods) trans. Charles Perry.
>
> This is from Medieval Arab Cookery, ed. Charles Perry et al.

 From Jewish-Holiday-art:
>  Hamantaschen - Haman's hats, which are triangular pastries filled 
> with a mixture
> of honey and poppy seeds. Other traditional Ashkanizic foods include 
> Kreplach
> which are similar to Sambusak and filled with meat and Lekach - honey 
> cake.

Or I guess you could feed them to your bees and eat the honey... From 
the bees-msg file:
> Source:
> Archbishop Olaus Magnus: "History of the Nordic Peoples"
> Printed in Rome A.D. 1555.
>
> "In emergencies, instead of giving them honey, the people feed the
> bees with crushed beans or peas, cookies made of poppy-seed, wheat
> flour moistened with mead, or with meat of freshly-slaughtered 
> chickens,
> shredded.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****