THE POPPY HARVEST

Taranaki Daily News, 24 November 1934, Page 19 (Supplement)

THE POPPY HARVEST

SEEDS CONTAIN NO POISON. (By Elisabeth Kyle). Poppy seeds make favourite flavouring for bread and cakes in Central Europe, even the morning rolls being peppered with the little black things like caraway seeds, while a dish of them is often handed round the dinner sweet, to be sprinkled on dumplings or whipped cream. They contain no drowsy poison, so if you like to forrtf a taste for them .you may with perfect safety-and live long in the countries where they can be procured. , Earlier in the season, the great CentralEuropean express has thundered past fields of tall white poppies, the petals of which are blown open by the wind to display the purple hearts. When the flowers are still at their best, and before the seeds are formed, women from certain villages are accustomed to soothe crying babies by giving them milk which lies within the unripe poppy kernels. The moisture is saturated with opium which drugs the babies who, in after life betray the injury thus ignorantly inflicted upon them. The result is that in some of the villages where the custom is prevalent the intelligence of the population is markedly below the average. Many progressive womens’ societies include the combating of this evil habit in their schedule of lectures and activities. But towards harvest-time, when the milk has dried up and the seeds are formed, the poppies become once more harmless though withered flowers. The fields are now green instead of white, and the hard poppy-heads from which the petals have long since fallen await the reaping knives of the women who come to cut them. They take the hav-st in baskets to the farmhouse kitchen, where they sit in rows, slicing the Leads witl sharp knives and tilting the poppy seeds into their aprons. When the aprons are full, they are emptied into a large central container, and more poppy-heads are taken from the baskets. When all the seeds have been harvesed and the empty kernels thrown away, the farmer’s wife comes in with hot coffee and new white bread, more delicious than cake to those who are accustomed only to the rye variety. And each woman can dip her fingers mto the big tin of poppy-seeds and scatter a pinch of the delicious flavouring upon her bread.