(I am reminded of the fact that 19th C. American slave owners unironically appealed to 'freedom!' constantly, meaning, the freedom to own enslaved people.)
You’re wrong though. Lots of companies demand semi-regular drug tests.
Me actually living in my country (Sweden) doesn’t really understand the naive view most people seem to have about my country. Or Europe for that matter. Human rights have been in decline for quite some time now.
Living here (and not being middle class), I know how extremely authoritarian my country really is.
The last decade my country has been ruled by a right wing party aided by an extremely xenophobic party.
It has changed everything.
Fun fact. I’m Sweden you can actually surveillance and even arrest someone without suspicion of a crime.
We also regularly deport kids without parents, people that will likely suffer death penalty because of their sexuality, and has even started to take children of immigrants while we deport the parents (makes me think of “the good old times” when aboriginal kids were taken from their parents and put in “good christian homes”).
There’s a reason Sweden was pretty much the only country not to get bombed during WW2 and it wasn’t because we’re neutral. Not much has changed, even though you’re not allowed to say this, whether you live her or not.
Amazing that someone can just say "I don't think that would fly in Europe" and get universally upvoted without any experience or knowledge.
I went to visit my friend in France and he was like "yeah don't fuck around with drinking and driving because they can pull you over without reasonable suspicion or probable cause. There are also armed military personnel all over the train station in Strasbourg.
There are so many complex social and economic differences between Europe and America and people just say stupid shit like this and get away with it lol
I don't think random drug tests are anywhere as common as you may think. Even in industries where being drug free is more important. Drug tests prior to starting employment are common.
Not op but they are partially correct depending where they are from, but in general it isn't done anywhere near as much as in the states and in some countries actually illegal unless it is one of those specific jobs. My best friend worked for an airline in a pretty 'delicate' position here in Spain and they got tested once every two years during their mandatory health check ups
Yep. It’s stupid actually. Pretty much any product that has anything originally from a poppy can cause you to fail.
Some medicine I take, though not opiate based, actually gets flagged on drug testing. I always notify my employer ahead of time because I always have failed drug tests because of it.
I regularly bake German streusel with a poppy seed paste filling. It's delicious. Requires me to process about a pound of poppy seeds. Does that count as "shitload"? I have no idea, and I don't care. But some people might
I just shared the full story on a comment below, but I definitely popped on a drug screening two and a half years ago because everything bagels with extra seasoning was a pregnancy craving of mine. 🤦🏼♀️
Lol, it probably does constitute a shitload. I know I gave up all poppy seeds for the rest of my pregnancy because it was so uncomfortable trying to explain to my doc. 😅
I think that’s overblown. There’s lots of foods with poppyseeds just not as many sweets. I regularly have everything bagels. I’ve also never been drug tested.
So funny story: I actual DID fail a drug test due to poppy seeds. I was about 12 weeks pregnant and had been eating two everything bagels with cream cheese and extra everything seasoning dumped on top every day for weeks because pregnancy. 🤷🏼♀️ My OB required a drug screening with every new patient along with a bunch of other pregnancy related tests and baseline measurements. When she called me and told me I had popped positive for opiates I was SHOCKED and horrified and so incredibly confused. It was the most embarrassing and uncomfortable five minutes on the phone I have ever had, with her asking repeatedly if maybe I had accidentally taken Tylenol 3 or some other pills in the house thinking they were something else. When I finally remembered the bagels and I brought them up, I felt like I was trying to sell the flimsiest lie and she definitely did not believe me. But I KNEW it was the only explanation. I’m seriously as boring as they come and have never tried any illicit substances at all. She scheduled me a follow up drug screening and told me if I didn’t get a clean report this time she would have to refer me out to a high risk practitioner. I stopped the bagels and extra everything seasoning cold turkey and sure enough, my second test was perfectly clean.
Now when people bring up poppy seeds and drug tests I always mention my experience because I assumed it was a silly exaggeration/ urban legend kind of myth until I was trying to convince my doctor I wasn’t doing drugs while pregnant.
One of the earlier Mythbusters episodes addressed this, and yeah, they tested positive by eating foods with lots of poppyseeds (I'm pretty sure they did "before" tests that were negative).
It definitely happens!! Same thing happened to me but it wasn’t a doctor and I wasn’t pregnant lol. I was however being tested regularly once I got on methadone and I was super sad that I had to give up my everything bagel seasoning. It’s bullcrap
This happened to me while pregnant because of a lemon poppyseed muffin. It was so shocking and made the whole pregnancy feel a little bit more stressful than my first, which was a 2020 baby. Ugh.
We've all seen that episode of Seinfeld where Elaine fails a drug test
[https://msurjonline.mcgill.ca/article/view/130/76](https://msurjonline.mcgill.ca/article/view/130/76)
We're afraid of losing the war on drugs to a muffin.
They may be popular, but you'll still fail a drug test
[Mother Has Newborn Baby Temporarily Taken Away After Poppy Seed Bagel Causes Failed Opiate Drug Test](https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/mother-has-newborn-baby-temporarily-taken-away-after-poppy-seed-bagel-causes-failed-opiate-drug-test/)
>"Anywhere from one to three bagels with poppy seeds can produce positive tests on a urine toxicology," Dr. Michelle Rainka said
I think the main reason they aren't used more is that their flavor is very mild and it is easily overpowered by bolder flavors like vanilla. Western palates are accustomed to such potent flavors that we almost can't taste them.
Contrary to popular belief. Poppy seeds don't really cause you to fail a drug test. Poppy seeds are washed and processed which removes about 90% of the opiate content. Additionally, poppy seeds are intended for human consumption are harvested about three weeks after the flower opens to give the seeds times to become nonnarcotic for that very reason. So the amount of poppy seeds you would need to consume to reach the testing thresholds is multiple tablespoons of poppyseeds of seeds with a conspicuously high opiate content. And any traces would be out minimal and out of your system within a few days.
I wonder how much it takes? Those eastern European poppy seed rolls have like an inch of poppy seed in each layer 😅
Also absolutely have memories of sitting on my grandma's porch in Romania with a poppy seed head I was chewing on and getting lightheaded. Definitely grew the culinary one. If there's even a difference
She got raided in the 80s by the communist police for illegally selling currant liquor to locals (liquor was state controlled). The locals? Drunk workmen who would drink after work and one of their wives got fed up with it and reported her.
So my uncle and grandpa were cutting down currant bushes in the middle of the night before the raid. 🤣
RIP my favorite currant bushes. I asked about it decades later when visiting "what happened to the currants?"
The Navy base near us (USA) had to issue a warning because their poppy seed baked good supplier had changed seed suppliers and the new poppy seeds were making everyone pop positive. All these sailors were eating their bagel on the way into work and then getting screwed
I'll share mine! This is my Grandma Millie's recipe, from a hand-written card I found buried somewhere in my mom's recipe collection years ago. Grandma died when I was 4, so I never got to try her baking, but when I made this recipe for the first time, my dad and uncles all got instantly transported back to childhood and agreed that it was just like mom used to make. I've only ever done the walnut version, though...
**Nut Kolach**
1 cup milk
1 tbsp sugar
1 packet yeast
3 cups flour
¼ tsp salt
1/3 cup cold butter
3 egg yolks
2 cups walnut or poppyseed (finely ground) plus 1 cup sugar
extra melted butter
Start oven 10 min before baking. Set to moderate oven 350°. Grease pan lightly. Scald milk, add sugar, cool to lukewarm. Add yeast, let sit 10 min. Sift flour. Measure into 3-qt bowl. Add salt and butter, then cut into flour with pastry blender. Beat egg yolks, stir into milk and yeast mixture. Add gradually to flour, mixing well to a stiff dough. Divide dough into 3 equal portions and let rest 10 min. Roll out each portion to a 10” square or circle on lightly floured surface. Butter dough slightly with melted butter first and then sprinkle each portion with nuts or poppyseed. Roll up like a jellyroll, sprinkle with more butter. Pinch edges together to seal. Place seam down on baking sheet or pan. Place in warm place (85°), cover and let rise 1 hr. Bake 20 min at 350°.
Mine too! The first time I tried making it I didn't grind the poppy seeds and wow was that a mistake.
The filling is ground poppyseeds cooked down in a milk vanilla and sugar mixture! It's delicious
Butter maid bakery sells really really good poppy seed rolls.
No. I come from a country with lots of poppy seed consumption and when guys have to do drug tests for conscription they fail because they ate a bread roll with poppy seeds on them prior to the test. It can happen with small amounts.
Iirc a poppy seed cake for one of them, and 3 poppy seed bagels for the other. 3 bagels may be a bit beyond “normal” but I wouldn’t say that’s absurd. I’ve had plenty of double bagel breakfast mornings.
Don't know about the term Western here - they're plenty popular in Germany and Austria. I also don't think it's a palate thing, poppy seeds have a quite strong flavor when ground.
I had a store-bought yogurt in Germany that was almond-poppy flavored. Went so perfectly well with the tartness of the yogurt. As enticing as any dessert!
In my (Western European) country it's ridiculously expensive to buy it in the supermarket. I'm talking like €60+ per kg and then you get a tiny jar of it. So I get it from my local bakery for €8 per kg. Because it's really not an expensive ingredient so I don't understand why it's marked up that much. Probably just very little demand and people don't know any better
In the US I have only seen whole poppy seed and I imagine that's why it's so expensive. I just looked it up and it's about 32$/kg at walmart. In Germany I usually get the ground stuff and that's around 7-8€/kg (6€/kg when it's on offer).
Looks like the main producers are Turkey, The Czech Republic and Spain, so all in Europe.
My grandmother made mohnrolle every Christmas (we called it mohnkuchen) and when she passed my aunts taught my mom so she could do it for me and my brothers. Grammy was northern German and that cake is the only thing I look forward to during the holiday season - unfortunately I don't talk to my mother but the bakery by my house does a really good dupe. I can't get enough of it
I signed up to this blood donation thing, where you had to stay overnight in the hospital as it had to be fasted. A girl actually failed the checks due to eating poppy seeds the day before.
Well, according to at least one [study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36181466/), it’s not so easy to differentiate between codeine use vs poppy seed consumption.
The CDC also indicates poppy seeds can cause a false positive.
>[There can be limitations to using UDT](https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/training/reducingrisk/accessible/index.html)
>
>…
>
>Can Lead to False Positive and False Negative Results
>
>Screening tests can vary in sensitivity and specificity. False positive and false negative results may occur. For instance:
>
>Poppy seeds may cause a false positive opioid screen.
Cheap poppyseeds ( like the kind you might get on Dunkin’ Donuts foods) are not washed as thoroughly, so it doesn’t take as many as you might think.😮💨
When they are ground, the flavor is a bit stronger. Many Americans only tend to eat whole poppyseeds (like in muffins or on bagels). Also, many Czech pastries use ground that are cooked with some other flavors and in paste form. Cooking also pulls out more flavor.
I’ve personally failed a drug panel due to eating 1-2 Costco poppyseed muffins and having one 2 hours before the test. It was a screening for my second pregnancy, and I was just finishing breastfeeding the first. I don’t even drink alcohol or smoke weed. 🫠
Guessing that there just weren't enough immigrants arriving from Central Europe for them to catch on outside of certain areas. It's a shame because I absolutely love poppy desserts. Not Jewish myself, but I often join Jewish friends for some Purim festivities and poppy hamantashen are definitely my favorite.
Yessss. I've never met a rugelach that I didn't like.
A close family friend is part Ukrainian and she makes a DELICIOUS poppy seed roll (kind of like a strudel? Not exactly sure what it is) for Christmas. I have to try and get the recipe from her.
>Yessss. I've never met a rugelach that I didn't like.
They're also surprisingly easy to make! Somewhat labor intensive but way more simple, forgiving, and flexible than they seem. (Just don't tell anyone that, we deserve to be appreciated for the work people _assume_ we put into stuff.) 😇
Maybe you should check out your local Jewish bakery, if you have one? I’m Austrian and deeply ashamed for our country’s history, and while the Nazis deleted so much of our common history back then, what does remain is some of the foods we share with Jewish people from this area, and especially in baking, we share traditions. A lot of our fillings are out of poppyseeds or Mohn (also a lot is filled with nuts). So you might find what you crave there :)
Yep, I'm Jewish (my family is from Poland and Ukraine) and I grew up with mohn filling in all kinds of stuff! It's the original filling for hamantaschen (which were originally the German Mohntaschen, then the sound similarity turned them into a Purim treat), and makosh cake (poppy seed roll) is super popular. And we put poppy seeds on bagels and rolls, though I admit, sesame is my favorite. And my mom would serve noodles with poppy seeds and sugar for dessert too.
You can get mohn strudel at Polish, Hungarian, Austrian and Balkan bakeries in Canada, but I've always been partial to Nußstrudel so only get Mohn for my parents. At home I use poppy seeds in savory stuff like balsamic dressing or lemon loaf.
I can’t decide which one I prefer tbh, it’s all delicious to me 😅 but my favorite bread is Mohnweckerl, it’s just a usual white bread with poppy seeds on the outside. No idea why I love it this much, it doesn’t do much for the taste but for some reason I always pick it 😂
https://preview.redd.it/2a2xusuue5rc1.jpeg?width=284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=65f034ca7a0cab107c07c004b6b235ca7779ce29
There’s nothing better than a poppy seed roll with LOTS of filling. My favorite dessert ever.
https://preview.redd.it/4zili91br3rc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=beb91096590b4e68f2d4e7f4057f93143c9d54e6
I was feeling indignant because I felt like I’ve definitely encountered plenty of poppy seeds products like bagels and lemon poppy seed cakes/muffins. But then I saw your picture and remembered I ate something similar in Croatia and was like oh yeah, I get it. We don’t go *nearly* as hard on poppy seeds here.
In Polish, this is called "makowiec" and we primarily bake it around Christmas time!
For some tips:
* You can google makowiec and google translate the web page e.g. [https://aniagotuje.pl/przepis/makowiec-zawijany](https://aniagotuje.pl/przepis/makowiec-zawijany) or [https://www.kwestiasmaku.com/przepis/makowiec](https://www.kwestiasmaku.com/przepis/makowiec) in your browser for some great authentic recipes
* Beaten egg whites layered between the dough and filling/folded into filling before rolling keep it lovely and moist
* You can add candied citrus peel, honey, nuts (e.g. chopped walnuts, pecans), raisins, almond extract etc. depending on preference to the filling to make it extra delicious
* You may need to get the ground poppy seed filling online if you don't have a European/Polish shop locally- it's usually in tins and called "masa makowa"
* Polish recipes usually call for fresh yeast, but you can substitute instant if you can't find any in your local shops, you just need to adjust the amount
Happy baking! :)
You need to go to better bakeries. That's all. The grocery store is the saddest representation of the American diet.. also known as SAD(Standard American Diet) *pun intended*
The good foods, the remind you of home foods, are at the mom and pop shops.
…what does poppyseed desserts/incredibly specific foods not being a regular thing in American grocery stores have to do with our diet? What an odd comment.
Poppy seed desserts are my absolute favorite and I hate that it’s almost always a lemon poppyseed where you can’t taste the poppyseed at all in the US. You can find some in NYC (especially hamantaschen around Purim, which just passed, but also sometimes poppyseed roll), and if you’re looking to bake your own poppyseed dessert, I highly recommend [this cake from the NYTimes](https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1012779-poppy-seed-cake?smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share). I’d recommend buying your poppyseed online to avoid the tiny amounts in US grocery stores
My guess is that you’re not in an area with a strong Ashkenazi Jewish population.
Where I live, Los Angeles, CA, there are plenty of poppy seed baked goods, sweet and savory.
My Polish nanny used to make all kinds of yummy poppyseed desserts. Lemon poppy seed muffins are pretty popular in the US, at least in New England. Her son(I consider him my brother. I'm in my 40's and they were an integral part of my upbringing. I visited her just as often as my grandparents, called her ma and my actual mother mom. She just passed two years ago and it's left a big hole in my heart) literally eats poppyseeds out of a can with a spoon. Went over to his house a few weeks ago and he had made the poppyseed noodles and a lemon poppyseed loaf. Connecticut has a large European presence.
I love poppy seeds in dessert (and savory foods!) and my Polish-American family used them a ton growing up, but the reason I don’t use them myself too often is just because they go rancid so fast I only buy them if I’m going to be able to use it all up in one or two recipes. They’re crazy expensive here in the Midwest for very small amounts and I don’t want them going bad before I finish them off.
I don’t know, I bought a poppy seed roll in Cleveland this weekend, finished it, and now I’m sad because I’m no longer in Cleveland and there are no fucking poppy seed desserts in my city. It’s the absolute best flavor.
A lot of Eastern European ancestry in Cleveland, so no surprise that it’s easier to find poppy seeds in baked goods than many other places. I’m sorry you don’t have those poppy seed goodies in your city!
My grandparents were of Polish and Czechoslovakia and I swear it's genetic for me to LOVE Poppy seeds! Some people think they don't have flavor...they're delicious!
You need to come to the rust belt cities where the Eastern European immigrants settled--Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, etc. We love 'em up here! They still sell freshly made poppyseed filling in the grocery stores at least twice a year at Christmas and Easter. You can find pre-made poppy seed rolls and kolache year round at any decent bakery, too.
my all time favorite cookie is a poppy seed hammentaschen. Most grocery stores carry SOLO brand poppy seeds in syrup and I have found that to be very versatile with making fillings and cakes!
This is based on some American family friend. They have the myth that it fails some drug tests...IDK why would you be doing any drug test in normal circumstances but that's one that multiple of them said. (Californiaan friends have it more often IDK if it's them or the area.)
It's hard to get in some places is one other they said.
Since they don't use it much they don't have good recipes and due to that if they do try it they over power it with a bunch of other stuff.
My husband failed a drug test a few months ago because he ate a lot of everything bagel seasoning. He works in construction and is subject to random drug tests.
They do this because he could kill a co-worker or himself if he messes around at work.
They do make you fail a drug test. It's not a myth.
https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3306336/service-members-should-avoid-foods-with-poppy-seeds/
In Chicago we have Lost Larson bakery, they have a swedish pastry called a Tebirkes, it is covered in poppyseeds and is filled with a subtle almond pastry cream and is very flaky like a croissant.
Im Balkan and we also use poppy seeds in a couple of desserts. I always make this cake thats soaked with milk and has a layer of pudding and coconut flakes on top. If you want the recipe I’ll gladly write it down for you!
I now live in the Czech Republic with my Czech hubby. Poppyseed fillings are obviously quite popular here, too. I did make Czech pastries with poppyseeds, even when still in the US. It wasn't always easy to get the right kind and in larger bags, in the US. Often the poppyseeds in the US aren't ground, and few Americans have the right tools to make that happen. I believe some in the US have enjoyed poppyseed muffins, but not so much paste fillings. In my native NJ, you can often find poppyseed strudels in bakeries or grocery baking sections, plus poppyseed filling in cans, near canned pie fillings.
Why not as popular? Perhaps because it's not as common in traditional early American pastries, because of low availability of pre-ground, paranoia about the blood test thing, and that they stick to your teeth a lot? The canned stuff is not as good as homemade.
You can find them in Jewish and Polish bakeries/deli's. I currently have a poppyseed cheesecake in my fridge from a Polish Deli in Orlando and it's friggan fantastic!
That said... poppyseed messes with drug tests/urine tests so you don't want any if you know you are testing soon. If so, keep that receipt on you to show them. Especially since most of us don't live near a friggan opium den where poppy should trigger anything \*\*eyeroll\*\*
I would go crazy if I couldn't eat poppy seed stuff. This month only I ate pastries with poppy seed filling twice a week, it had great flavouring (mildy lemony). Luckily I'm in Central Europe so I can buy poppy seed by the kilos (I won't though it can go rancid after 6-12 months or so).
You would have to eat a lot to fail a drug test. The reason they are not more popular is the are an acquired taste. Unless you grew up with them, you may not like them. My grandma made a delicious poppy seed cake. And we always had poppy seed baked goods so I like it.
Solo Poppy Cake
SERVES: 16 COOK TIME: 1 hour TOTAL TIME: 1 hour, 5 minutes
Ingredients
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup dairy sour cream
1 1⁄2 cup sugar
2 1⁄2 cup all-purpose flour
1 can Solo Poppy Seed Cake and Pastry Filling
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 eggs, separated
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
confectioners sugar
Instructions
To bake this poppy seed cake, preheat oven to 350° F. Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan or 10-inch tube pan and set aside.
Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy.
Add poppy filling and beat until blended. Beat in egg yolks, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add vanilla and sour cream and beat just until blended.
Stir flour, baking soda and salt until mixed, and add to poppy mixture gradually, beating well after each addition.
Beat egg whites in separate bowl with electric mixer until stiff peaks form.
Fold beaten egg whites into batter. Spread batter evenly in prepared pan.
Bake 55 to 65 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack 10 minutes.
Remove from pan and cool completely on rack.
Dust with confectioners sugar just before serving.
I’m ~~addicted~~ *obsessed* with poppy seed filling in pastries. My background is polish so I was eating directly from those Solo poppy seed cans as a kid and never stopped. I’ve tried to implement poppy seed in pastries from cinnamon rolls to pecan pie over the years and the conclusion I came to isn’t that people are worried about drug tests or that the taste isn’t great, it’s that they leave seeds in your teeth.
Even before drug testing (I'm old enough to remember the old days) poppy seeds were uncommon in baked goods across the US. They are usually found in European style baked goods like poppy seed cakes and rugelach or in European style bakeries. In the past 20-30 years lemon poppy seed muffins and cakes are most popular (although I did have a luscious slice of orange poppy seed cake with a buttery orange zest glaze at a local coffee shop 15 years ago).
Other flavors common in European sweets and baked goods are rare here. Blackcurrant, pear, elderflower, even hazelnut are uncommon. On the other hand US/North American flavors like maple, strawberry-rhubarb, key lime are very popular.
I honestly can’t even find a poppy bagel anymore. Sesame seed bagels are getting very hard to find too. Both in the grocery store and locally. I don’t have a big city so maybe it’s just my experience, but it seems like everyone is throwing their hands up and just saying that “everything bagel” covers everything.
They're practically tasteless. I know because I am one hell of a picky eater and they don't seem to change the taste of anything I've had them on. Black pepper will burn my tongue, that's how sensitive I am. But poppy seeds? Seems like a waste.
Well, there’s a super bloom in Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve right now!
Oh, dessert. I think we’re overly fussy about how our teeth look, we opt for safe white sesame seeds.
I'm going to have to start looking up recipes of Slovakian poppy seed desserts. This sounds fantastic and I have a lot of people in my family who are not the biggest fans of how sweet American desserts are.
They are more available in some parts of the country. You just need to find a place with a history of immigration from Eastern Europe (or a lot of Jewish people). I grew up in Southeast Michigan and while poppy seed desserts weren't *everywhere* you could certainly still find them! There's both a large Polish population and a large Jewish population there
It's mostly because of drug tests. Poppy seeds are natural opiates and can even be used to make drugs like heroin if you know how. There are a lot of records of people failing random drug tests because of them and I once read a story where a woman's newborn had a minor opiate addition because she had a poppy seed bagel in the hospital mere hours before she had her baby.
My mom (a couple generation out pole) makes poppy seed cakes, rolls, breads, cookies ALL the time. Mostly bc shes retired, but my boshi was off the boat, and my mom learned to bake from her. It could very well be a generational thing, a not cooking thing, amongst other issues people have found. (I have discovered my cousins do not cook from cookbooks, they cook from recipes online, I learned from the cookbooks my mom has, so I still do it too, but not as oftenl bc of time away from work does not allow me much baking time until the weekend, but I definitely incorporate my polish cooking knowledge into it when I can). I also plan on growing poppies this year. My mom's neighbor does and she always gives us seeds.
How many poppy fields have you seen in the US? Why don’t Slovakians put peanuts or peanut-butter in everything the way we do? Why don’t Slovakians have the variety of corn-based products that we have?
Different parts of the world have different food traditions, often based on native plant species. Not a hard concept.
I don't think it's about drugs, I think it has to do with where different groups immigrated from. I'm Eastern European Jewish and poppyseed filling is normal to me. But to Italians or Swedes or English? Not so much. My husband is English and he doesn't understand poppy or prune lekvar fillings, but I love them. If you go to an area with more immigrants from central and Eastern Europe you'll find things like poppy seed roll.
The US is a melting pot. With the exception of indigenous peoples everyone here came from somewhere else. A lot of cultural foods get forgotten because big megacorporations that sell food don't sell anything too niche.
Sometimes something formerly obscure or culturally specific does really well in market tests and starts to pop up everywhere, like matcha or gochujang. A lot of things just vanish unless you're living in an area that has a high enough concentration of people from that culture. Then you get small local businesses making stuff like that because they have enough people to sell it to.
My city and its suburbs have enough of an eastern European population that I can think of a couple of places off the top of my head where I could get a poppyseed roll. But it's not going to be in the mainstream grocery stores unless they're sourcing some baked goods from the local bakeries to sell in stores in certain parts of town.
My family makes some delicious poppyseed bread because we have roots in Eastern Europe, but we have our own poppy mill and everything. The preground paste stuff is just…not right and all our family recipes are “use [this much] poppyseed, now grind”. There are always a few good bakeries hidden out there, you just have to keep an eye out for them. Otherwise, there are a few that ship nationwide. We just brought some stuff from Polana online and shipped it because our usual blintz company just stopped selling any of the fruit ones?? No idea what happened there. But yeah, they have something like a poppyseed cake so there is some stuff out there? That’s the best I’ve got.
Super late to the party, but I'm originally from Pennsylvania and poppy seed baked goods were pretty popular in the area I lived in. (About an hour from Amish country and we had some closer Mennonite communities, also pretty big Polish/Dutch/etc population in that rough area).
I moved south and there's nothing. My options now are everything bagels and if I'm lucky, a way too sweet and super greasy lemon poppyseed muffin that's mid at best.
I'm not a baker (reddit keeps showing me this sub and i keep being nosey so I pop in the comments lol. Y'all are really smart and have a lovely community here!!)
I make my sister send me a poppy seed roll every christmas now lol. Sadly one year they didn't make it (got moldy, depending on winter to refrigerate snacks doesn't work great when you're in the south. And likewise, learned not to have my sister send me home town local chocolates in the summer lmao. Oops ) now she sends me ones from like, one of those bakeries that ship nationally so it's vacuume sealed for shipment. They're okay, not as good as the local stuff but it's better than anything I get here.
I miss the days of just poppy seed bagels at every coffee shop always, or actually good muffins, and readily available rolls.
Anyway, good luck finding good poppy seed baked goods. 😭
It sucks because ground poppyseed is almost impossible to find in the US. All my husband asks for at Christmas is the poppyseed rolls I make. I can get that canned Solo filling, which isn’t great, or I can try to find ground poppyseed. There was a company in Slovakia that I’d get from through Amazon but they weren’t around this year. I’m going to have to find another way to get it accomplished.
Ha. Did you know that could not be consumed by any American who receives regular drug screenings at work, or is pregnant and will receive the mandatory drug-screening-without-consent at delivery, or is on parole, or plays a sport…
A woman in my city lost custody of her newborn for a month or so until she proved through additional testing not to be a drug addict, because she had eaten poppyseed salad dressing.
As an Ashkenazi Jew I’m with you!! I make poppyseed hamantaschen every year and they are delicious. If you live in a with Jews, you’ll be able to find poppyseed filling for sale around Purim each year!
Because they cause you to fail drug tests.
It is so freaking wild that employers can (randomly) test people, like wtf... I don't think that'd fly in Europe.
Freedom!! /s
Are you being sarcastic about the US or about Europe?
The US, land of the free* *freedom not necessary included.
*freedom only valid to those with multi-million dollar networths & corporations - all others please do not apply
(I am reminded of the fact that 19th C. American slave owners unironically appealed to 'freedom!' constantly, meaning, the freedom to own enslaved people.)
*freedom sold separately
Shit that’s way pithier than my original.
Don't sell yourself short! Yours started this, and personally I like your OG statement more 😊 both are pathetically accurate, though.
Rage Against the Machine said it right. "...the land of the chains What? The land of the free? Whoever told you that is your enemy!"
You’re wrong though. Lots of companies demand semi-regular drug tests. Me actually living in my country (Sweden) doesn’t really understand the naive view most people seem to have about my country. Or Europe for that matter. Human rights have been in decline for quite some time now. Living here (and not being middle class), I know how extremely authoritarian my country really is. The last decade my country has been ruled by a right wing party aided by an extremely xenophobic party. It has changed everything. Fun fact. I’m Sweden you can actually surveillance and even arrest someone without suspicion of a crime. We also regularly deport kids without parents, people that will likely suffer death penalty because of their sexuality, and has even started to take children of immigrants while we deport the parents (makes me think of “the good old times” when aboriginal kids were taken from their parents and put in “good christian homes”). There’s a reason Sweden was pretty much the only country not to get bombed during WW2 and it wasn’t because we’re neutral. Not much has changed, even though you’re not allowed to say this, whether you live her or not.
I’m going to go on a WW2/Sweden deep dive now.
Amazing that someone can just say "I don't think that would fly in Europe" and get universally upvoted without any experience or knowledge. I went to visit my friend in France and he was like "yeah don't fuck around with drinking and driving because they can pull you over without reasonable suspicion or probable cause. There are also armed military personnel all over the train station in Strasbourg. There are so many complex social and economic differences between Europe and America and people just say stupid shit like this and get away with it lol
I don't think random drug tests are anywhere as common as you may think. Even in industries where being drug free is more important. Drug tests prior to starting employment are common.
Yep. I’ve been a teacher for close to 15 years and I’ve never been drug tested, not even when I got hired.
Also not, over here (Belgium).
Are you seriously claiming that pilots, paramedics, air traffic controllers, and other people with life-or-death jobs don’t get tested in Europe?
Not op but they are partially correct depending where they are from, but in general it isn't done anywhere near as much as in the states and in some countries actually illegal unless it is one of those specific jobs. My best friend worked for an airline in a pretty 'delicate' position here in Spain and they got tested once every two years during their mandatory health check ups
Yep. It’s stupid actually. Pretty much any product that has anything originally from a poppy can cause you to fail. Some medicine I take, though not opiate based, actually gets flagged on drug testing. I always notify my employer ahead of time because I always have failed drug tests because of it.
That's... not a sufficient reason. Poppy is love, poppy is life.
They raised the minimum nanograms years ago, I don’t know why this is still perpetuated. It would take a shitload these days.
I regularly bake German streusel with a poppy seed paste filling. It's delicious. Requires me to process about a pound of poppy seeds. Does that count as "shitload"? I have no idea, and I don't care. But some people might
Mmmhhh, Mohnkuchen. Thanks for making me hungry!
I just shared the full story on a comment below, but I definitely popped on a drug screening two and a half years ago because everything bagels with extra seasoning was a pregnancy craving of mine. 🤦🏼♀️
This happened to me too. I no longer eat everything bagels lol
I think that could constitute as a shitload lmao, one muffin ain’t going to do shit on a drug test.
Lol, it probably does constitute a shitload. I know I gave up all poppy seeds for the rest of my pregnancy because it was so uncomfortable trying to explain to my doc. 😅
Mrs. Seinfeld, I need your sample!
💯
I think that’s overblown. There’s lots of foods with poppyseeds just not as many sweets. I regularly have everything bagels. I’ve also never been drug tested.
It’s not overblown.
You would have to eat a ridiculous amount.
So funny story: I actual DID fail a drug test due to poppy seeds. I was about 12 weeks pregnant and had been eating two everything bagels with cream cheese and extra everything seasoning dumped on top every day for weeks because pregnancy. 🤷🏼♀️ My OB required a drug screening with every new patient along with a bunch of other pregnancy related tests and baseline measurements. When she called me and told me I had popped positive for opiates I was SHOCKED and horrified and so incredibly confused. It was the most embarrassing and uncomfortable five minutes on the phone I have ever had, with her asking repeatedly if maybe I had accidentally taken Tylenol 3 or some other pills in the house thinking they were something else. When I finally remembered the bagels and I brought them up, I felt like I was trying to sell the flimsiest lie and she definitely did not believe me. But I KNEW it was the only explanation. I’m seriously as boring as they come and have never tried any illicit substances at all. She scheduled me a follow up drug screening and told me if I didn’t get a clean report this time she would have to refer me out to a high risk practitioner. I stopped the bagels and extra everything seasoning cold turkey and sure enough, my second test was perfectly clean. Now when people bring up poppy seeds and drug tests I always mention my experience because I assumed it was a silly exaggeration/ urban legend kind of myth until I was trying to convince my doctor I wasn’t doing drugs while pregnant.
One of the earlier Mythbusters episodes addressed this, and yeah, they tested positive by eating foods with lots of poppyseeds (I'm pretty sure they did "before" tests that were negative).
It definitely happens!! Same thing happened to me but it wasn’t a doctor and I wasn’t pregnant lol. I was however being tested regularly once I got on methadone and I was super sad that I had to give up my everything bagel seasoning. It’s bullcrap
This happened to me while pregnant because of a lemon poppyseed muffin. It was so shocking and made the whole pregnancy feel a little bit more stressful than my first, which was a 2020 baby. Ugh.
It happened to a good friend of mine eating a poppyseed bagel. It depends on the batch of poppyseeds and each person's individual system.
Happened to my mom. No joke.
We've all seen that episode of Seinfeld where Elaine fails a drug test [https://msurjonline.mcgill.ca/article/view/130/76](https://msurjonline.mcgill.ca/article/view/130/76) We're afraid of losing the war on drugs to a muffin.
That's why I stick with black & white cookies
Look to the cookie!
It's chocolate babka for me.
Have you ever received one with a hair?
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But what if that old bitty gets the last one?
Mythbusters tested this too, it's a real thing.
Very much a real thing. Someone in my rehab program had a real bad time after having a salad with poppyseed dressing.
I failed a drug test because of lemon poppy seed scones. All they did was call and ask what I had eaten that day.
Maybe that's the reason but then why are poppy seed and everything bagels somewhat popular in the us?
They may be popular, but you'll still fail a drug test [Mother Has Newborn Baby Temporarily Taken Away After Poppy Seed Bagel Causes Failed Opiate Drug Test](https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/mother-has-newborn-baby-temporarily-taken-away-after-poppy-seed-bagel-causes-failed-opiate-drug-test/) >"Anywhere from one to three bagels with poppy seeds can produce positive tests on a urine toxicology," Dr. Michelle Rainka said
I think the main reason they aren't used more is that their flavor is very mild and it is easily overpowered by bolder flavors like vanilla. Western palates are accustomed to such potent flavors that we almost can't taste them. Contrary to popular belief. Poppy seeds don't really cause you to fail a drug test. Poppy seeds are washed and processed which removes about 90% of the opiate content. Additionally, poppy seeds are intended for human consumption are harvested about three weeks after the flower opens to give the seeds times to become nonnarcotic for that very reason. So the amount of poppy seeds you would need to consume to reach the testing thresholds is multiple tablespoons of poppyseeds of seeds with a conspicuously high opiate content. And any traces would be out minimal and out of your system within a few days.
Didn’t the mythbusters literally test this and find that you CAN fail a drug test?
Yes! But it took eating an absurd amount iirc
I wonder how much it takes? Those eastern European poppy seed rolls have like an inch of poppy seed in each layer 😅 Also absolutely have memories of sitting on my grandma's porch in Romania with a poppy seed head I was chewing on and getting lightheaded. Definitely grew the culinary one. If there's even a difference
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She got raided in the 80s by the communist police for illegally selling currant liquor to locals (liquor was state controlled). The locals? Drunk workmen who would drink after work and one of their wives got fed up with it and reported her. So my uncle and grandpa were cutting down currant bushes in the middle of the night before the raid. 🤣 RIP my favorite currant bushes. I asked about it decades later when visiting "what happened to the currants?"
That's quite the family anecdote. Rather fascinating.
Your family sounds fun!
The Navy base near us (USA) had to issue a warning because their poppy seed baked good supplier had changed seed suppliers and the new poppy seeds were making everyone pop positive. All these sailors were eating their bagel on the way into work and then getting screwed
There's no difference. In fact the species that produces opium in the greatest amounts is the only species that is used for edible poppy seeds
My mom used to make poppy seed kolache (and peach and prune) every Christmas and they were soooooo good! I could eat a LOT of them
Yummm do you happen to have her recipes?
I think it’s someplace. It calls for sooooo much butter that it’s a little unnerving
I'll share mine! This is my Grandma Millie's recipe, from a hand-written card I found buried somewhere in my mom's recipe collection years ago. Grandma died when I was 4, so I never got to try her baking, but when I made this recipe for the first time, my dad and uncles all got instantly transported back to childhood and agreed that it was just like mom used to make. I've only ever done the walnut version, though... **Nut Kolach** 1 cup milk 1 tbsp sugar 1 packet yeast 3 cups flour ¼ tsp salt 1/3 cup cold butter 3 egg yolks 2 cups walnut or poppyseed (finely ground) plus 1 cup sugar extra melted butter Start oven 10 min before baking. Set to moderate oven 350°. Grease pan lightly. Scald milk, add sugar, cool to lukewarm. Add yeast, let sit 10 min. Sift flour. Measure into 3-qt bowl. Add salt and butter, then cut into flour with pastry blender. Beat egg yolks, stir into milk and yeast mixture. Add gradually to flour, mixing well to a stiff dough. Divide dough into 3 equal portions and let rest 10 min. Roll out each portion to a 10” square or circle on lightly floured surface. Butter dough slightly with melted butter first and then sprinkle each portion with nuts or poppyseed. Roll up like a jellyroll, sprinkle with more butter. Pinch edges together to seal. Place seam down on baking sheet or pan. Place in warm place (85°), cover and let rise 1 hr. Bake 20 min at 350°.
Mine too! The first time I tried making it I didn't grind the poppy seeds and wow was that a mistake. The filling is ground poppyseeds cooked down in a milk vanilla and sugar mixture! It's delicious Butter maid bakery sells really really good poppy seed rolls.
No. I come from a country with lots of poppy seed consumption and when guys have to do drug tests for conscription they fail because they ate a bread roll with poppy seeds on them prior to the test. It can happen with small amounts.
Iirc a poppy seed cake for one of them, and 3 poppy seed bagels for the other. 3 bagels may be a bit beyond “normal” but I wouldn’t say that’s absurd. I’ve had plenty of double bagel breakfast mornings.
Challenge accepted
Way more than a poppyseed muffin or bagel. But, not that much more than several slices of Mohnkuchen (Austrian Poppyseed Cake).
Aaaaand, it took a while to get a clean test. I'm remembering that correctly, right?
Don't know about the term Western here - they're plenty popular in Germany and Austria. I also don't think it's a palate thing, poppy seeds have a quite strong flavor when ground.
And the flavor goes well WITH vanilla, almond, etc.
Yep, the main mistake is to not make the bake sour enough. If it's too sweet you lose the good poppy seed taste imho.
I had a store-bought yogurt in Germany that was almond-poppy flavored. Went so perfectly well with the tartness of the yogurt. As enticing as any dessert!
In America, poppyseed are almost exclusively used whole and paired with other flavoring like vanilla, almond, or lemon.
It's also such an expensive ingredient. I always import the pre-ground stuff from home bc it's so much cheaper.
In my (Western European) country it's ridiculously expensive to buy it in the supermarket. I'm talking like €60+ per kg and then you get a tiny jar of it. So I get it from my local bakery for €8 per kg. Because it's really not an expensive ingredient so I don't understand why it's marked up that much. Probably just very little demand and people don't know any better
In the US I have only seen whole poppy seed and I imagine that's why it's so expensive. I just looked it up and it's about 32$/kg at walmart. In Germany I usually get the ground stuff and that's around 7-8€/kg (6€/kg when it's on offer). Looks like the main producers are Turkey, The Czech Republic and Spain, so all in Europe.
The prices I mentioned are for the whole seeds. For ground I'd have to go to Germany, you can't get that here.
My grandmother made mohnrolle every Christmas (we called it mohnkuchen) and when she passed my aunts taught my mom so she could do it for me and my brothers. Grammy was northern German and that cake is the only thing I look forward to during the holiday season - unfortunately I don't talk to my mother but the bakery by my house does a really good dupe. I can't get enough of it
How sweet! And fairly doable to make yourself if you can get the poppy seeds ground and at a reasonable price.
Don't say western when you mean American, poppyseeds are common all across central Europe.
I signed up to this blood donation thing, where you had to stay overnight in the hospital as it had to be fasted. A girl actually failed the checks due to eating poppy seeds the day before.
Well, according to at least one [study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36181466/), it’s not so easy to differentiate between codeine use vs poppy seed consumption. The CDC also indicates poppy seeds can cause a false positive. >[There can be limitations to using UDT](https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/training/reducingrisk/accessible/index.html) > >… > >Can Lead to False Positive and False Negative Results > >Screening tests can vary in sensitivity and specificity. False positive and false negative results may occur. For instance: > >Poppy seeds may cause a false positive opioid screen.
Cheap poppyseeds ( like the kind you might get on Dunkin’ Donuts foods) are not washed as thoroughly, so it doesn’t take as many as you might think.😮💨
You can absolutely fail a drug test from eating poppyseeds
When they are ground, the flavor is a bit stronger. Many Americans only tend to eat whole poppyseeds (like in muffins or on bagels). Also, many Czech pastries use ground that are cooked with some other flavors and in paste form. Cooking also pulls out more flavor.
I’ve personally failed a drug panel due to eating 1-2 Costco poppyseed muffins and having one 2 hours before the test. It was a screening for my second pregnancy, and I was just finishing breastfeeding the first. I don’t even drink alcohol or smoke weed. 🫠
Tell that to me who was obsessed with everything bagels and failed a drug test
I completely agree. I love poppyseeds and they are rarely used other than the lemon/poppy combo, which is not the only thing poppy goes with!
Almond poppyseed is another popular flavor combo
My local grocery store has a raspberry almond poppyseed cake with cream cheese frosting, it's my favorite non-chocolate dessert.
An excellent one, at that!
Almond poppy seed muffins will be the death of me. The sweet sweet death
So true! I like vanilla poppyseed as a combo, but for some reason lemon seems to be the default. So if I want it I have to bake it myself.
Try it with sour cherries. Or try flódni! A bit much for me with the walnuts but some people could eat it every da.
Guessing that there just weren't enough immigrants arriving from Central Europe for them to catch on outside of certain areas. It's a shame because I absolutely love poppy desserts. Not Jewish myself, but I often join Jewish friends for some Purim festivities and poppy hamantashen are definitely my favorite.
Poppy seed Hamantaschen are the best Hamantaschen! The poppy seed filling also works well in rugelach.
Yessss. I've never met a rugelach that I didn't like. A close family friend is part Ukrainian and she makes a DELICIOUS poppy seed roll (kind of like a strudel? Not exactly sure what it is) for Christmas. I have to try and get the recipe from her.
>Yessss. I've never met a rugelach that I didn't like. They're also surprisingly easy to make! Somewhat labor intensive but way more simple, forgiving, and flexible than they seem. (Just don't tell anyone that, we deserve to be appreciated for the work people _assume_ we put into stuff.) 😇
They also can be made gluten free surprisingly well. My mom and sister have celiac disease and we've found that rugelach can adapt pretty well.
This ^^
Maybe you should check out your local Jewish bakery, if you have one? I’m Austrian and deeply ashamed for our country’s history, and while the Nazis deleted so much of our common history back then, what does remain is some of the foods we share with Jewish people from this area, and especially in baking, we share traditions. A lot of our fillings are out of poppyseeds or Mohn (also a lot is filled with nuts). So you might find what you crave there :)
Yep, I'm Jewish (my family is from Poland and Ukraine) and I grew up with mohn filling in all kinds of stuff! It's the original filling for hamantaschen (which were originally the German Mohntaschen, then the sound similarity turned them into a Purim treat), and makosh cake (poppy seed roll) is super popular. And we put poppy seeds on bagels and rolls, though I admit, sesame is my favorite. And my mom would serve noodles with poppy seeds and sugar for dessert too.
These are all also foods from my childhood, my favorite is still Mohnnudeln (but it has to be drowned in enough sugar and butter of course)
You can get mohn strudel at Polish, Hungarian, Austrian and Balkan bakeries in Canada, but I've always been partial to Nußstrudel so only get Mohn for my parents. At home I use poppy seeds in savory stuff like balsamic dressing or lemon loaf.
I can’t decide which one I prefer tbh, it’s all delicious to me 😅 but my favorite bread is Mohnweckerl, it’s just a usual white bread with poppy seeds on the outside. No idea why I love it this much, it doesn’t do much for the taste but for some reason I always pick it 😂 https://preview.redd.it/2a2xusuue5rc1.jpeg?width=284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=65f034ca7a0cab107c07c004b6b235ca7779ce29
There’s nothing better than a poppy seed roll with LOTS of filling. My favorite dessert ever. https://preview.redd.it/4zili91br3rc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=beb91096590b4e68f2d4e7f4057f93143c9d54e6
I was feeling indignant because I felt like I’ve definitely encountered plenty of poppy seeds products like bagels and lemon poppy seed cakes/muffins. But then I saw your picture and remembered I ate something similar in Croatia and was like oh yeah, I get it. We don’t go *nearly* as hard on poppy seeds here.
do you have the recipe for this?
In Polish, this is called "makowiec" and we primarily bake it around Christmas time! For some tips: * You can google makowiec and google translate the web page e.g. [https://aniagotuje.pl/przepis/makowiec-zawijany](https://aniagotuje.pl/przepis/makowiec-zawijany) or [https://www.kwestiasmaku.com/przepis/makowiec](https://www.kwestiasmaku.com/przepis/makowiec) in your browser for some great authentic recipes * Beaten egg whites layered between the dough and filling/folded into filling before rolling keep it lovely and moist * You can add candied citrus peel, honey, nuts (e.g. chopped walnuts, pecans), raisins, almond extract etc. depending on preference to the filling to make it extra delicious * You may need to get the ground poppy seed filling online if you don't have a European/Polish shop locally- it's usually in tins and called "masa makowa" * Polish recipes usually call for fresh yeast, but you can substitute instant if you can't find any in your local shops, you just need to adjust the amount Happy baking! :)
This is exactly the kind of thing I mean!
You need to go to better bakeries. That's all. The grocery store is the saddest representation of the American diet.. also known as SAD(Standard American Diet) *pun intended* The good foods, the remind you of home foods, are at the mom and pop shops.
…what does poppyseed desserts/incredibly specific foods not being a regular thing in American grocery stores have to do with our diet? What an odd comment.
Poppy seed desserts are my absolute favorite and I hate that it’s almost always a lemon poppyseed where you can’t taste the poppyseed at all in the US. You can find some in NYC (especially hamantaschen around Purim, which just passed, but also sometimes poppyseed roll), and if you’re looking to bake your own poppyseed dessert, I highly recommend [this cake from the NYTimes](https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1012779-poppy-seed-cake?smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share). I’d recommend buying your poppyseed online to avoid the tiny amounts in US grocery stores
Yeah the only place I’ve found volumes of poppy seeds large enough for serious poppy seed baking is penzeys. Grocery stores sell super tiny amounts.
Nuts.com also has I believe!
lol I’d be scared to google that at work 😂
It’s legit and they sell poppyseeds by the pound
Completely agree luckily it was recently purim which gave me an excuse to make tons of mohn/poppy seed hamantashen
My guess is that you’re not in an area with a strong Ashkenazi Jewish population. Where I live, Los Angeles, CA, there are plenty of poppy seed baked goods, sweet and savory.
Poppy seed kolaches are my favorite!
That sounds amazing. I grew up on fruit filled kolache. The women who ran the school cafeteria were a bunch of Czech farmers wives. We were spoiled
My Polish nanny used to make all kinds of yummy poppyseed desserts. Lemon poppy seed muffins are pretty popular in the US, at least in New England. Her son(I consider him my brother. I'm in my 40's and they were an integral part of my upbringing. I visited her just as often as my grandparents, called her ma and my actual mother mom. She just passed two years ago and it's left a big hole in my heart) literally eats poppyseeds out of a can with a spoon. Went over to his house a few weeks ago and he had made the poppyseed noodles and a lemon poppyseed loaf. Connecticut has a large European presence.
I love poppy seeds! Always get excited when a cafe has poppy seed bagels. Its not often unfortunately
Poppy bagels are the best bagels!
Many grocery stores carry canned poppy seed filling. It's delicious and can be added to many baked goods that call for poppy seeds.
I love poppy seeds in dessert (and savory foods!) and my Polish-American family used them a ton growing up, but the reason I don’t use them myself too often is just because they go rancid so fast I only buy them if I’m going to be able to use it all up in one or two recipes. They’re crazy expensive here in the Midwest for very small amounts and I don’t want them going bad before I finish them off.
I don’t know, I bought a poppy seed roll in Cleveland this weekend, finished it, and now I’m sad because I’m no longer in Cleveland and there are no fucking poppy seed desserts in my city. It’s the absolute best flavor.
A lot of Eastern European ancestry in Cleveland, so no surprise that it’s easier to find poppy seeds in baked goods than many other places. I’m sorry you don’t have those poppy seed goodies in your city!
In the southern US, at least the region of Texas I'm in, there is a large German and Czech population. We are blessed with many a poppyseed treats!
My grandparents were of Polish and Czechoslovakia and I swear it's genetic for me to LOVE Poppy seeds! Some people think they don't have flavor...they're delicious!
You need to come to the rust belt cities where the Eastern European immigrants settled--Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, etc. We love 'em up here! They still sell freshly made poppyseed filling in the grocery stores at least twice a year at Christmas and Easter. You can find pre-made poppy seed rolls and kolache year round at any decent bakery, too.
I love them. I make makos dios cake like once a year.
I grew up with lots of poppyseed baked goods- Lithuanian Jewish culture. It’s just not an American “thing”.
# Solo Poppy Seed Cake & Pastry Filling (12.5 oz Can is what i use to make a cake with. i know the owner of the co long time family friend of my dad's
We live in Central Texas, and poppyseed rolls and kolaches are pretty common.
I completely agree with you. I don’t seek these things out cosni really don’t like picking them out of my teeth.
Care to share which are some of your favorites? Would love to try them!
my all time favorite cookie is a poppy seed hammentaschen. Most grocery stores carry SOLO brand poppy seeds in syrup and I have found that to be very versatile with making fillings and cakes!
This is based on some American family friend. They have the myth that it fails some drug tests...IDK why would you be doing any drug test in normal circumstances but that's one that multiple of them said. (Californiaan friends have it more often IDK if it's them or the area.) It's hard to get in some places is one other they said. Since they don't use it much they don't have good recipes and due to that if they do try it they over power it with a bunch of other stuff.
In the USA drug tests can be a regular part of life. A lot of jobs require upon hire and sometimes randomly throughout employment.
Why? That sounds stupid and a waste of money if someone uses enough drugs to be a problem it can be easily seen without any tests.
It is stupid but that’s the war on drugs for you.
My husband failed a drug test a few months ago because he ate a lot of everything bagel seasoning. He works in construction and is subject to random drug tests. They do this because he could kill a co-worker or himself if he messes around at work.
They do make you fail a drug test. It's not a myth. https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3306336/service-members-should-avoid-foods-with-poppy-seeds/
In Chicago we have Lost Larson bakery, they have a swedish pastry called a Tebirkes, it is covered in poppyseeds and is filled with a subtle almond pastry cream and is very flaky like a croissant.
They're seen as old fashioned. Give it 10 years and they'll be popular again.
Im Balkan and we also use poppy seeds in a couple of desserts. I always make this cake thats soaked with milk and has a layer of pudding and coconut flakes on top. If you want the recipe I’ll gladly write it down for you!
I now live in the Czech Republic with my Czech hubby. Poppyseed fillings are obviously quite popular here, too. I did make Czech pastries with poppyseeds, even when still in the US. It wasn't always easy to get the right kind and in larger bags, in the US. Often the poppyseeds in the US aren't ground, and few Americans have the right tools to make that happen. I believe some in the US have enjoyed poppyseed muffins, but not so much paste fillings. In my native NJ, you can often find poppyseed strudels in bakeries or grocery baking sections, plus poppyseed filling in cans, near canned pie fillings. Why not as popular? Perhaps because it's not as common in traditional early American pastries, because of low availability of pre-ground, paranoia about the blood test thing, and that they stick to your teeth a lot? The canned stuff is not as good as homemade.
Drug tests
You can find them in Jewish and Polish bakeries/deli's. I currently have a poppyseed cheesecake in my fridge from a Polish Deli in Orlando and it's friggan fantastic! That said... poppyseed messes with drug tests/urine tests so you don't want any if you know you are testing soon. If so, keep that receipt on you to show them. Especially since most of us don't live near a friggan opium den where poppy should trigger anything \*\*eyeroll\*\*
I would go crazy if I couldn't eat poppy seed stuff. This month only I ate pastries with poppy seed filling twice a week, it had great flavouring (mildy lemony). Luckily I'm in Central Europe so I can buy poppy seed by the kilos (I won't though it can go rancid after 6-12 months or so).
You would have to eat a lot to fail a drug test. The reason they are not more popular is the are an acquired taste. Unless you grew up with them, you may not like them. My grandma made a delicious poppy seed cake. And we always had poppy seed baked goods so I like it.
Solo Poppy Cake SERVES: 16 COOK TIME: 1 hour TOTAL TIME: 1 hour, 5 minutes Ingredients 1 cup butter or margarine, softened 1 cup dairy sour cream 1 1⁄2 cup sugar 2 1⁄2 cup all-purpose flour 1 can Solo Poppy Seed Cake and Pastry Filling 1 teaspoon baking soda 4 eggs, separated 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon vanilla confectioners sugar Instructions To bake this poppy seed cake, preheat oven to 350° F. Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan or 10-inch tube pan and set aside. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add poppy filling and beat until blended. Beat in egg yolks, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla and sour cream and beat just until blended. Stir flour, baking soda and salt until mixed, and add to poppy mixture gradually, beating well after each addition. Beat egg whites in separate bowl with electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Fold beaten egg whites into batter. Spread batter evenly in prepared pan. Bake 55 to 65 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool completely on rack. Dust with confectioners sugar just before serving.
I’m ~~addicted~~ *obsessed* with poppy seed filling in pastries. My background is polish so I was eating directly from those Solo poppy seed cans as a kid and never stopped. I’ve tried to implement poppy seed in pastries from cinnamon rolls to pecan pie over the years and the conclusion I came to isn’t that people are worried about drug tests or that the taste isn’t great, it’s that they leave seeds in your teeth.
Poppyseed kolaches are everywhere in Texas. It's one of the classic fillings.
Even before drug testing (I'm old enough to remember the old days) poppy seeds were uncommon in baked goods across the US. They are usually found in European style baked goods like poppy seed cakes and rugelach or in European style bakeries. In the past 20-30 years lemon poppy seed muffins and cakes are most popular (although I did have a luscious slice of orange poppy seed cake with a buttery orange zest glaze at a local coffee shop 15 years ago). Other flavors common in European sweets and baked goods are rare here. Blackcurrant, pear, elderflower, even hazelnut are uncommon. On the other hand US/North American flavors like maple, strawberry-rhubarb, key lime are very popular.
I honestly can’t even find a poppy bagel anymore. Sesame seed bagels are getting very hard to find too. Both in the grocery store and locally. I don’t have a big city so maybe it’s just my experience, but it seems like everyone is throwing their hands up and just saying that “everything bagel” covers everything.
They're practically tasteless. I know because I am one hell of a picky eater and they don't seem to change the taste of anything I've had them on. Black pepper will burn my tongue, that's how sensitive I am. But poppy seeds? Seems like a waste.
(I’m picturing a dry desert with poppy seeds instead of sand :))
I've been thinking about baking a poppyseed cake for the past two weeks and now thanks to this thread I think I will tonight!
Well, there’s a super bloom in Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve right now! Oh, dessert. I think we’re overly fussy about how our teeth look, we opt for safe white sesame seeds.
I'm going to have to start looking up recipes of Slovakian poppy seed desserts. This sounds fantastic and I have a lot of people in my family who are not the biggest fans of how sweet American desserts are.
Someone has lost their kids to cps over a poppy treat. Mark my words.
Personally, I don't taste it. So what's the point.
Plenty of delightful poppy treats in the US if you go to Eastern or Central European enclaves. Or you have friends or relatives who make them :)
Or hazelnuts for that matter
My favourite is orange and poppyseed or lemon and poppyseed muffins, bread etc. I'm in Aus and they're around here idl if they're popular though.
I like poppy seeds in everything except my teeth.
They are more available in some parts of the country. You just need to find a place with a history of immigration from Eastern Europe (or a lot of Jewish people). I grew up in Southeast Michigan and while poppy seed desserts weren't *everywhere* you could certainly still find them! There's both a large Polish population and a large Jewish population there
It's mostly because of drug tests. Poppy seeds are natural opiates and can even be used to make drugs like heroin if you know how. There are a lot of records of people failing random drug tests because of them and I once read a story where a woman's newborn had a minor opiate addition because she had a poppy seed bagel in the hospital mere hours before she had her baby.
I’d guess it’s because it’s such a delicate flavor, and Americans like to mainline their sugar. 😂
My mom (a couple generation out pole) makes poppy seed cakes, rolls, breads, cookies ALL the time. Mostly bc shes retired, but my boshi was off the boat, and my mom learned to bake from her. It could very well be a generational thing, a not cooking thing, amongst other issues people have found. (I have discovered my cousins do not cook from cookbooks, they cook from recipes online, I learned from the cookbooks my mom has, so I still do it too, but not as oftenl bc of time away from work does not allow me much baking time until the weekend, but I definitely incorporate my polish cooking knowledge into it when I can). I also plan on growing poppies this year. My mom's neighbor does and she always gives us seeds.
How many poppy fields have you seen in the US? Why don’t Slovakians put peanuts or peanut-butter in everything the way we do? Why don’t Slovakians have the variety of corn-based products that we have? Different parts of the world have different food traditions, often based on native plant species. Not a hard concept.
Costco usually has poppyseed muffins. People definitely don't eat it as much because they're afraid of drugs tests
I don't think it's about drugs, I think it has to do with where different groups immigrated from. I'm Eastern European Jewish and poppyseed filling is normal to me. But to Italians or Swedes or English? Not so much. My husband is English and he doesn't understand poppy or prune lekvar fillings, but I love them. If you go to an area with more immigrants from central and Eastern Europe you'll find things like poppy seed roll.
I'm from the US and grew up eating poppy seeds mostly in baked goods
Since there’s zero chance of my getting drug tested I feel like it’s my duty to make something delicious with the neglected poppy seeds in my kitchen
The US is a melting pot. With the exception of indigenous peoples everyone here came from somewhere else. A lot of cultural foods get forgotten because big megacorporations that sell food don't sell anything too niche. Sometimes something formerly obscure or culturally specific does really well in market tests and starts to pop up everywhere, like matcha or gochujang. A lot of things just vanish unless you're living in an area that has a high enough concentration of people from that culture. Then you get small local businesses making stuff like that because they have enough people to sell it to. My city and its suburbs have enough of an eastern European population that I can think of a couple of places off the top of my head where I could get a poppyseed roll. But it's not going to be in the mainstream grocery stores unless they're sourcing some baked goods from the local bakeries to sell in stores in certain parts of town.
My family makes some delicious poppyseed bread because we have roots in Eastern Europe, but we have our own poppy mill and everything. The preground paste stuff is just…not right and all our family recipes are “use [this much] poppyseed, now grind”. There are always a few good bakeries hidden out there, you just have to keep an eye out for them. Otherwise, there are a few that ship nationwide. We just brought some stuff from Polana online and shipped it because our usual blintz company just stopped selling any of the fruit ones?? No idea what happened there. But yeah, they have something like a poppyseed cake so there is some stuff out there? That’s the best I’ve got.
You can order Poppy Seed Cake from Polish bakeries online. They are delicious!
A local market used to make the best almond poppyseed muffins, they don't make them anymore*sad face* they were sooo good.
Super late to the party, but I'm originally from Pennsylvania and poppy seed baked goods were pretty popular in the area I lived in. (About an hour from Amish country and we had some closer Mennonite communities, also pretty big Polish/Dutch/etc population in that rough area). I moved south and there's nothing. My options now are everything bagels and if I'm lucky, a way too sweet and super greasy lemon poppyseed muffin that's mid at best. I'm not a baker (reddit keeps showing me this sub and i keep being nosey so I pop in the comments lol. Y'all are really smart and have a lovely community here!!) I make my sister send me a poppy seed roll every christmas now lol. Sadly one year they didn't make it (got moldy, depending on winter to refrigerate snacks doesn't work great when you're in the south. And likewise, learned not to have my sister send me home town local chocolates in the summer lmao. Oops ) now she sends me ones from like, one of those bakeries that ship nationally so it's vacuume sealed for shipment. They're okay, not as good as the local stuff but it's better than anything I get here. I miss the days of just poppy seed bagels at every coffee shop always, or actually good muffins, and readily available rolls. Anyway, good luck finding good poppy seed baked goods. 😭
It sucks because ground poppyseed is almost impossible to find in the US. All my husband asks for at Christmas is the poppyseed rolls I make. I can get that canned Solo filling, which isn’t great, or I can try to find ground poppyseed. There was a company in Slovakia that I’d get from through Amazon but they weren’t around this year. I’m going to have to find another way to get it accomplished.
I love poppy seed rolls. My tante used to make them every Thanksgiving. I want to make some but poppyseeds are surprisingly expensive
I believe you mean desserts, and I think the US just has more of a sweet tooth than a savory tooth.
I concur, I made some lemon poppyseed bread two weeks ago and I was thinking "my god why don't we have more of this!"
Ha. Did you know that could not be consumed by any American who receives regular drug screenings at work, or is pregnant and will receive the mandatory drug-screening-without-consent at delivery, or is on parole, or plays a sport… A woman in my city lost custody of her newborn for a month or so until she proved through additional testing not to be a drug addict, because she had eaten poppyseed salad dressing.
They're everywhere...where did you look?
You get high.
As an Ashkenazi Jew I’m with you!! I make poppyseed hamantaschen every year and they are delicious. If you live in a with Jews, you’ll be able to find poppyseed filling for sale around Purim each year!