# Cooking poppy heads in "The Golden Compass" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 21, 2007, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-poppy-heads-in-the-golden-compass/430797 "2007-12-21T04:36:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-poppy-heads-in-the-golden-compass/430797/1 "2007-12-21T04:36:15Z")
The opening chapter of _The Golden Compass_ (AKA _Northern Lights_) depicts the Master of (fictional) Jordan College at Oxford cutting open poppy heads and frying them in butter to serve to his guests because it “clarified the mind.” I’ve heard of eating opium, but never of eating whole fried seed pods. It doesn’t seem like a very effective way of consuming opium. Was this ever done in real life? Googling reveals nothing. (Actually, it reveals a great deal about growing, harvesting, refining, and consuming opium, but nothing that suggests frying the heads in butter is effective or has ever been practiced.) ---
**Author:** ![ArmenE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ArmenE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ArmenE)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-poppy-heads-in-the-golden-compass/430797/2 "2007-12-21T05:09:52Z")
[QUOTE=Alan Smithee] The opening chapter of _The Golden Compass_ (AKA _Northern Lights_) depicts the Master of (fictional) Jordan College at Oxford cutting open poppy heads and frying them in butter to serve to his guests because it “clarified the mind.” I’ve heard of eating opium, but never of eating whole fried seed pods. It doesn’t seem like a very effective way of consuming opium. Was this ever done in real life? Googling reveals nothing. (Actually, it reveals a great deal about growing, harvesting, refining, and consuming opium, but nothing that suggests frying the heads in butter is effective or has ever been practiced.) [/QUOTE] I haven’t seen the film, but there’s a big difference between eating opium and eat poppy seeds. How is this much different from a poppy roll or some dessert like that? ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-poppy-heads-in-the-golden-compass/430797/3 "2007-12-21T06:21:42Z")
It’s in the book; they cut that scene from the movie. It is possible that they are just enjoying the seeds, but the description–clarifying the mind and loosening conversation–suggests a psychotropic effect. Poppy heads are also the source of opium, so it seems significant that the heads are referred to, not the seeds within. Even if Pullman is describing a historical practice that was purely culinary, he is certainly creating the deliberate impression of something illicit by our society’s standards (though not the standards of the book’s fictional society). ---
**Author:** ![Darryl\_Lict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@Darryl\_Lict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darryl_Lict)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-poppy-heads-in-the-golden-compass/430797/4 "2007-12-21T07:09:22Z")
This [short story](http://www.newsreview.com/reno/Content?oid=24306) chronicles the “Confessions of an eBay opium addict”. It’s a funny read and it sounds like there is more than a little bit of truth to it. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-poppy-heads-in-the-golden-compass/430797/5 "2007-12-21T07:14:46Z")
I’m not sure if I’d use the word “funny.” “Depressing” and “Horrifying” are what come to mind for me. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-poppy-heads-in-the-golden-compass/430797/6 "2007-12-21T09:02:11Z")
[QUOTE=Alan Smithee] The opening chapter of _The Golden Compass_ (AKA _Northern Lights_) depicts the Master of (fictional) Jordan College at Oxford cutting open poppy heads and frying them in butter to serve to his guests because it “clarified the mind.” I’ve heard of eating opium, but never of eating whole fried seed pods. It doesn’t seem like a very effective way of consuming opium. Was this ever done in real life? Googling reveals nothing. (Actually, it reveals a great deal about growing, harvesting, refining, and consuming opium, but nothing that suggests frying the heads in butter is effective or has ever been practiced.) [/QUOTE] It’s very effective. People have become addicted to poppy-head tea or even poppy-seed tea quite readily, and presumably eating the poppy heads would be even more effective, if only slightly. Obviously you’d get a much stronger effect from actually extracting the opium and converting it to morphine and/or heroin, but that’s not exactly a “mind-clarifying for a dinner party” effect. ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-poppy-heads-in-the-golden-compass/430797/7 "2007-12-21T09:17:44Z")
[QUOTE=Alan Smithee] It’s in the book; they cut that scene from the movie. It is possible that they are just enjoying the seeds, but the description–clarifying the mind and loosening conversation–suggests a psychotropic effect. Poppy heads are also the source of opium, so it seems significant that the heads are referred to, not the seeds within. Even if Pullman is describing a historical practice that was purely culinary, he is certainly creating the deliberate impression of something illicit by our society’s standards (though not the standards of the book’s fictional society). [/QUOTE] As noted in **Darryl Lict** ’s link (which, coincidentally, I posted in a different thread earlier tonight), poppy pods can be some strong little buggers. For someone with no tolerance, a single pod will have very noticable effects. Like the opium that comes from them, poppy pods are a mixture of codeine and morphine. Poppy seeds can have those effects, too, but they’re much weaker. IIRC, people making tea from them tend to use about 1/4 pound or so, depending on the strength, which can vary wildly. In fact, there’s such a great variation in strength that the same dose of weaker seeds that has only a normal effect on a person could kill that same person if it was particularly strong. [Here](http://poppyseedtea.com/) is a site made by the parents of a teenager who overdosed and died that way. Scary stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Panurge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@Panurge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Panurge)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-poppy-heads-in-the-golden-compass/430797/8 "2007-12-21T09:49:50Z")
It is definitely done. I have had poppy-head tea in Pakistan, and the effect was very nice and mellow. It was not the only intoxicant involved, though. At the same time we were served a cannabis-based drink called _bhang_, and I strongly suspect that the poppy-heads alone wouldn’t have had much of an effect. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-poppy-heads-in-the-golden-compass/430797/9 "2007-12-21T10:53:58Z")
When I was an unwise teen, we found opium poppies in my neighbour’s garden. We picked them and I made poppy head tea, then strained it, boiled it down to a resin, and smoked it. It gave me a feeling of physical numbness all over my body for about five minutes, and the next day I had the worst hangover of my life. ---
**Author:** ![outside\_artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@outside\_artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outside_artist)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2007, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-poppy-heads-in-the-golden-compass/430797/10 "2007-12-22T10:58:15Z")
So, Daryl Lict, what happened in the rest of the story? Is it possible to get the rest of it or at least to know what happened to the guy and his marriage? ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2007, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-poppy-heads-in-the-golden-compass/430797/11 "2007-12-22T15:48:58Z")
For some reason, that link to the story cuts off four paragraphs too soon. [Here](http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Currents/Content?oid=67441) is the complete article, though it doesn’t really answer your question. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2007, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-poppy-heads-in-the-golden-compass/430797/12 "2007-12-22T16:15:03Z")
I thought the title of this thread said “puppy” instead of “poppy.” -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2007, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-poppy-heads-in-the-golden-compass/430797/13 "2007-12-22T16:18:30Z")
[QUOTE=Frylock] I thought the title of this thread said “puppy” instead of “poppy.” -FrL- [/QUOTE] Hell, I’ve even posted to this thread, but just now I read it as “poopy heads”.