tudorprincess

We are headed to London in 16 days ,and while just now eating a pot pie I removed 33 green peas and it got me to thinking (once again). I've noticed that quite a lot of meals in the U.K. come with peas. I had a meal on the Bateaux London lunch cruise once that came with 99 1/2 peas.
Just from an historical aspect, can anyone tell me why there are so many peas in England? Is it the soil? Do Brits like peas more than the rest of us?
I do remember reading somewhere once an Englishman/woman wondering why there were so many carrots served in the U.S.
Perhaps Ben Haines or FlannerUK has the answer.

NeoPatrick

I can't answer your question, but I'm sorry your Bateaux cruise was so boring you had to resort to counting out the 99 1/2 peas. I'd have been a nervous wreck worrying about what happened to that other 1/2 pea.

I've always been more astounded by the potatoes. It's the only country I can think of where a lasagna in a pub is often served WITH potatoes, or sometimes meals come with mashed potatoes and chips, or roasted potatoes and chips, or -- well, at least two kinds of potatoes.

By the way, are you the tudor princess who was kept awake all night by a pea under her mattress? Just curious. If so, I understand your obsession with the things.

tudorprincess

Ah, yes, the princess and the pea. I hadn't thought about that.
Actually, I love the lunch cruises but despise peas. I just couldn't believe that someone would feel the need to put that many of any vegetable on a plate.
In all fairness I did once get boiled cabbage in a pub with my fish. No salt, no butter.
My husband is a big starch with starch cook. I don't get that either Patrick.

Carlux

No more info on peas, but I thought I would add to the vegetable discussion with a word on broccoli. All our French friends love Canada (or at least the idea of Canada, all that open space, nice clean snow. They just don't know how long winter lasts, and how dirty it gets when you live in a city)

A number have visited, and virtually all come back asking us why Canadians eat so much broccoli. They assure me that every hotel and restaurant they were in served broccoli. Can't say I ever noticed it when I lived there, but I guess it adds colour, and is certainly available all year, moreso than it is in France.

So, to each his or her own veg!

PalenQ

Awh shucks sure do miss those 'mushy peas,' which are called edible but i don't know why.

pease porridge pie anyone?

please pass the peas!

flanneruk

What's with all these people puzzled about the food we eat? Don't they have peas where they live?

Why would anyone count the number of peas in a pie? And why would they call a pie a pot pie?

There's often no explanation for normality: just that other people get puzzled easily.

Peas are obviously easy for caterers - especially caterers with ill-trained staff - to deal with. I can't think of an explanation for serving a half pea: 99 peas on a plate are explicable only by downright inept staff. Which the London catering industry specialises in.

Why THAT's the case is a completely different kettle of - well whatever.

BTW: Are you really averse to nice hot split pea soup with a couple of German sausages floating around? Pease pudding? Risi e bisi? Fresh peas in early summer? Any peas - especially petits pois - gently sauteed with a spot of ham and lettuce? Chilled pea soup? Peas, broad beans, artichokes and fat spring onions gently cooked together in good butter in spring?

Can you seriously conceive of minestrone without peas in? Or shepherd's pie?

If the answer to any of these questions is "yes" you have my deepest sympathy. But you can cure it, you know.

Now excuse me while I go and make some nice pea and ham soup for supper.

Robespierre

You got ripped off, tudorprincess&thepea.

There are supposed to be exactly ONE HUNDRED peas in that dish. Apply at the ticket window on the pier for a refund (let me get the video camera running first).

Incidentally, "pea" is an interesting word, because earlier versions of English contained the singular noun "pease" (as in porridge hot), but usage decided that it was a plural, and the word "pea" was invented to indicate singularity.

pat

Ate an omelet in Spain, and the peas just rolled out. Way too many, and they were canned too.

J_Correa

When I was a kid, my grandmother used to make us eat as many peas as years we were old. As a result, we always did a lot of counting of peas

tudorprincess

Flanner, very amusing but I'm going to throw up now. No peas, not ever, no how.

Kavey

Oooh my. Never met a pea counter before!

Peas. Nice and round. Nice and green. Grow rather easily. And they flash freeze particularly well making them an incredibly handy freezer item. Oh and did I mention they are nice and round and green.

99 1/2 peas you say.

Mind boggles at the image of you counting them!

flanneruk

Sorry if that answer sounded a bit dismissive.

Now the supper's on (orecchiette piselli prosciutto, if you're interested), let's try a different tack.

Most countries' normalcy is pretty much that. There's no obvious reason Americans regard rounders as a manly sport, while we regard it as something only for girls' schools. Normalcies often just develop. Which said though:

- there is a peculiarity to be explained away in the narrow range of veg generally offered in Britain

- that explanation lies in the fact that we moved off the land nigh on two hundred years ago. Practically no-one has acquired veg anywhere other than at a shop in living memory. Except for at street markets. But in Britain, they've long been just cheaper versions of shops. The veg on sale - at any rate till the fad for Farmers' Markets that's developed inthe past decade, and then only in a handful of yuppified areas of London and its rural suburbs - has been just as limited in street markets as in shops.

- there are a handful of veg that tin or freeze well. Since most of them are posh pulses (like tinned chick peas or borlotti) that only us weirdos go for, and we've never really been big on spinach, that does rather put peas in the driving seat. In much the same way as corn gets a similar role in the US. But peas grow well here, while it's really too cold to grow good corn for humans (there's quite a bit that's OK for animal fodder, but most canned and frozen corn is imported). Given how much of the cost of very basic food lies in the transport, and how cheaply Ukrainians and Latvians will work in the pea farms here, peas are about the cheapest non-spud around.

- so peas are simply the easiest (and usually cheapest) veg (apart of course from the national dish, baked beans in tomato sauce) a lazy (ie typical) houseperson can serve.

And the piselli-prosciutto sauce should just about be ready by now.

But I cannot emphasise this too strongly. Instead of indulging your ridiculous fetish, just go and eat some proper food.

Peas are good for you, taste delicious and - like most pulses - have been the basis of the human race's survival for thousands of years. If you're denying yourself the pleasure of eating them, get yourself cured as fast as you can.

Or failing that, go and find a decent Italian restaurant and ask for a sformato ai piselli. Or make yourself some petits pois etuves.

jules4je7

<i>All we are saying, is give peas a chance.</i>

tudorprincess

Flanner, your responses are always informative as well as amusing.
I'm not sure what you're trying to feed me but I do like prosciutto and melon.
However, peas are out of the question.

Kavey

Jules, ROFL!

JQReports

Sheesh! P's get all the attention. What about us Q's?

JQ

robjame

Tudor - I am with you!! Play hockey with them, flick them, stick them up your nose, even count them... do anything but eat the tasteless little green pustules. They are simply space fillers used instead of a more worthy vegetable.
I was subjected to the little buggers at a British boarding school so I empathize completely with you. The real answer is hidden in flanneruk's response above. The rest are hiding their embarrassment at a society that dares to serve these pellets as food to people.
It is one of the few vegs that will grow well in a climate where the rainy days outnumber the sunny days.
We all know what &quot;Go pea&quot; means...

noe847

Well, I certainly understand vegetable aversion, since I was quite the picky eater as a child. Have mostly gotten beyond that, however, and peas were always a veg that I would eat - but only fresh or frozen not canned.

Flanner, I have been fasting for Ash Wednesday, and your two posts have made me so hungry. I have googled recipes for pasta with piselli and prosciutto and will be making it for tomorrow's supper (I'm off to the grocery store now for the basics) - are you willing to share your recipe, or at least whether you do a cream sauce or one oil and stock based?

Nora_S

Popular bumper sticker: &quot;Visualize whirled peas&quot;

Actually I'm with Flanner. If you don't like them, you probably haven't had nice fresh ones, expeically petit pois, properly prepared. Or good risi e bisi.

LoveItaly

Well my mother grew peas in our backyard when I was growing up so they were as fresh as you could get. And to this day I still say &quot;gag!&quot; I am in agreement with you tudorprincess. However at least in a potpie there is gravy so you can kind of manage to swallow them without actually tasting them. I hated peas so much that when I was a teen my favorite uncle offered me 50cents for each pea I ate. That was a lot of money back when I was a teen. I was already to accept and then noticed my father looking at me. I declined because I knew if I took my uncle up on this offer I would have to eat peas at dinner forever more, lol.

BTW, my mother cooked English style so peas were served constantly. Nasty little things aren't they.

But what DID happen to that missing half pea I wonder.