pea

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fresh green peas

The fruit of a plant originally from central Asia and Europe. The green, smooth pods are straight or slightly bent, rounded or flat, and hold seeds of variable size, round in shape or slightly square. Usually green, these seeds can be grayish, whitish or brownish. Fresh peas are called "green peas," and when dried, "dried peas." The latter are sold whole or in halves, when they are called "split peas." Split peas come in green and yellow varieties.

Round peas, used by the frozen-food industry, are more mealy and less sweet than wrinkled peas, which are mostly used for canning.

Snow peas have sweet and crunchy edible pods. Only the flat ones are good to eat. 

Sugar-snap peas have tasty pods even when the green peas are well formed.

Buying

green peas

Choose: fresh green peas with smooth pods containing a good number of peas that are not too large, and are shiny and bright green in color.

Fresh green peas are rare and rather expensive.

snow peas

Choose: snow peas that are not too large with firm pods, crunchy and intact, and a good bright green color.

Avoid: snow peas with limp, wrinkled, yellowed or spotted pods.

Snow peas are mainly sold fresh.

Preparing

Before shelling fresh green peas, run them briefly under cold water, then break off the upper part of the pod and pull on the string found where the two pod-halves join (some varieties don't have a string). Repeat at the other end, separate the pods and remove the peas. Green peas do not need to be washed.

Serving Ideas

Snow peas and very young and very fresh green peas can be eaten raw; cooking makes them sweeter. 

Cooked fresh green peas can be combined with carrots or asparagus tips. They accompany meat and poultry. They can be made into soups. Cold peas can be used in a mixed salad. Frozen green peas are used in the same way as fresh green peas.

Snow peas are used in the same way as green beans, which they can replace in most recipes. Raw snow peas are used in salads and hors d'oeuvres. Cooked snow peas are prepared in the same way as fresh peas. They are excellent in stir-fries. 

Whole dried peas are cooked in soups, traditionally with a ham bone and cubed ham.

Puréed split peas are used in soups and can accompany main dishes.

Storing

Do not keep green pea pods longer 
than 12 hr.

In the fridge: place fresh podded green peas, 4-5 days, in a non-airtight container or a loosely closed or perforated bag.

In the freezer: blanch green peas and snow peas before freezing (1-2 min, depending 
on size).

Cooking

fresh green peas 

Cook peas only briefly to minimize loss of color and flavor. 

Boiled: 10-15 min, depending on size. 

Steamed or braised: place between two layers of wet lettuce leaves.

snow peas 

Boiled or steamed: 6-15 min. 

whole dried peas

Boiled: cook on a low simmer for 1-2 hr, after soaking.

split peas 

Boiled: 1-1¹/₂ hr, until tender. If cooked for too long, they tend to disintegrate. 

Don't cook in the pressure cooker, as they produce too much scum, which can block 
the safety and pressure valves.

Nutritional Information

snow peas

dried peas

green split peas

yellow split peas

wrinkled pea pods

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Pea (Pisum sativum) (credit: Walter Chandoha)

Any of several species, comprising hundreds of varieties, of herbaceous annual plants belonging to the family Leguminosae (or Fabaceae, also known as the pea family; legume), grown virtually worldwide for their edible seeds. Pisum sativum is the common garden pea of the Western world, which Gregor Mendel used for his pioneering studies of heredity. While their origins have not been definitely determined, it is known that peas are one of the oldest cultivated crops. Some varieties, called sugar peas, snow peas, or mange-touts, have edible pods and are popular in East Asian cuisines. sweet pea.

For more information on pea, visit Britannica.com.

The pea is one of the oldest cultivated crops. It is a native to western Asia from the Mediterranean Sea to the Himalaya Mountains. It appears to have been carried to Europe as early as the time of the lake dwellers of prehistoric times. Peas were introduced into China from Persia about A.D. 400; they were introduced into the United States in very early Colonial days.

Garden peas (Pisum sativum) have wrinkled seed coats at maturity when dry; field peas (P. arvense) have a smooth seed coat. Both types are annual leafy plants. Each leaf bears three pairs of leaflets and ends in a slender tendril. Five to nine round seeds are enclosed in a pod about 3 in. (7.5 cm) long. Seed color varies from white to cream, green, yellow, or brown. Smooth-seeded varieties may be harvested fresh for freezing or canning, or harvested dry as edible peas. Dry peas may be split or ground and prepared in various ways, such as for split-pea soup.

Wisconsin, Washington, Minnesota, Oregon, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Idaho lead in the production of peas harvested green.

There are many varieties of peas, all members of the legume family. Some-like the english pea (the common garden pea)-are grown to be eaten fresh, removed from their pods. Others-like the field pea-are grown specifically to be used dried. pod peas are those that are eaten pod and all, namely the snow pea and sugar snap pea. See also black-eyed pea; chickpea.

Peas are among the oldest cultivated vegetables and once served as a dietary cornerstone for the early agrarian societies of Europe and the Middle East. The English word for pea derives from Latin pisum, a term that now serves as the name of the genus to which peas belong. Pea is thus used in English in two senses: as a descriptor for other pea-like vegetables, such as cowpeas, chickpeas, pigeon peas, and winged peas; and as the specific name for Pisum sativum, the peas employed by humans as food or for such agricultural uses as fodder and green manures.

Genetic Origins

All true peas belong to the same species, but are divided out into three distinct groups or subspecies. This means that even though peas are self-fertile, they readily hybridize in nature and as a result, there a numerous crosses that often blur the differences between the subspecies. This discussion will focus exclusively on the three sub-species and their historical uses as a source of food.

The genetic origin of peas is thought to be southwest Asia, somewhere in the vicinity of Afghanistan. The ancestral pea is now extinct, although its immediate descendants, the wild pea (Pisum sativum, spp. elatius and spp. humile) survive in the Middle East. This is a vining plant with tiny flowers (often crimson or rose) that rambles over rocks or climbs on low bushes for support. Like modern peas, it has tendrils that allow it to use the limbs of nearby plants so that the pods are raised up and out of reach of rodents and other small animals. Stone Age sites in Greece and coastal Turkey dating from about 5700 B.C. have yielded carbonized remains of the elatius subspecies, whereas sites from the same period more inland in present Israel and especially the Tigris Valley, have produced remains of the subspecies humile. The general conclusion is that wild peas were recognized for their food value at an early date and were gathered both as a fresh vegetable in June (when the seeds are green and sweet) and as a dry seed for use during the rest of the year.

Wild peas later appear in the remains of Swiss lake dwellings (about 3000 B.C.E.), so it is evident that they were carried out of their native habitat into Europe and maintained either as a cultivated plant or as a managed plant in the wild. Since the pea formed a dietary triumvirate with lentils and such ancient grains as emmer, einkorn, and barley, it is likely that peas traveled as a useful weed along with the migration of early grains. Archaeological evidence suggests that wild peas were commonly found in areas planted with grain and that the entire plants were harvested, hung up and dried, then threshed as needed. Wild peas were mashed and cooked alone or with grains to make porridges, or they were ground into flour and mixed with other flours to make flat breads. Pea flour was also used as a medicine, especially in the treatment of wounds.

Cultivated Peas

The next step in the evolution of the pea was the appearance of the field pea, which is written botanically as Pisum sativum, spp. arvense. This is a form of pea that evolved artificially through human intervention and supplied early agricultural societies from China to Ireland with one of the most important staple foods down to the eighteenth century. Pease pottage was a common dish in the Middle Ages, and in India, vatana (dal made from peas) is still an important element of everyday diet. In the southern portion of the United States, people commonly refer to cowpeas as field peas, but the practical point is clear: this is not a plant grown in kitchen gardens; it is an American substitute form for the true field peas of Europe. Field peas, like wild peas, were harvested on the vine and dried in the barn. The peas were threshed as needed and the straw given as fodder to the livestock.

There are many heirloom varieties of field peas surviving today, although they are grown mostly as fodder or as a green manure (plowed under to enrich the soil). In the Middle Ages they were food for man and beast, and it is this type of pea that was introduced into China from India during the T'ang Dynasty. Pea soup even appears in early Buddhist texts as a healthful, albeit simple dish consistent with a monastic lifestyle.

Regardless of where they are cultivated, all field peas share certain common features that separate them from the so-called garden peas which later became more important. The vines are generally shorter and stronger than those of wild peas, the plants are more compact, and through natural mutation and careful selection over time, they normally yield a higher number of pods often with large seeds. However, to the casual viewer, the most distinctive feature is the flower, which is multicolored. Some of the most beautiful flowers in this species appear on field peas. Furthermore, the dry seeds are normally speckled. The tiny, speckled Jämtlands Grä Förder Ärt of Sweden, and the tan-seeded Groch Pomorski (Pomeranian Pea) of medieval Poland are two surviving examples of this type.

Field peas are often referred to in horticultural literature as gray peas, a term that seems to have evolved in the low countries owing to the color of the seed and the flour they yield. During the late Middle Ages, Capuchin monks in Holland and northern Germany devoted considerable energy to the improvement of field peas for agricultural purposes. This has resulted in a group of large-seeded gray peas referred to as Capuchin, especially those from the Netherlands where the breeding of new pea varieties became a national pastime by the early 1600s. One of the classic peas from this group and one which dates from the 1500s is the handsome blue pod Capucijner, a soup pea growing on six-foot (two m) vines.

Garden Peas

Dwarfism is a recessive gene in peas, and every so often short plants will appear in the field. This dwarfism was noted by Dutch growers in the seventeenth century and manipulated through careful selection to produce a variety of so-called bush types. Holland Capucijners with two-foot vines, and the delicious raisin Capucijners (which actually do look like dried raisins) represent a further evolution of this old category of pea. While they are technically field peas, these bush varieties were also adapted to kitchen gardens and therefore moved up a notch in culinary status. This brings us to the true garden pea, which is genetically different from its cousins in the field.

The garden pea is written botanically as Pisum sativum, spp. sativum and is readily recognized by its white flowers. The white flower suggests albinoism, especially since the flowers of wild peas are not naturally white. Genetic mutation is further supported by the fact that the seeds are generally very light in color, from near-white to yellow, and when dry are either smooth or wrinkled. Horticulturists now group garden peas by these seed textures since the two types yield peas with different culinary characteristics. Both types, however, contain more sugar than field peas when green, and it was this unusual sweetness that probably first caught the attention of observant gardeners in the Mediterranean some two thousand years ago.

The common white flowering garden pea was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, but its precise place of origin and date of appearance is unknown. It appears to have been treated as an aristocratic vegetable, hence its mention by Apicius and other classical authors. It was raised in the gardens of the great Roman estates for the luxury of the nobility, but it was not food for the masses: field peas were their sustenance. Garden peas continued to be grown during the Middle Ages, again as food for the aristocracy and church princes. It is not until the horticultural revolution of the 1600s that we find this pea moving into middle-class gardens. The Dutch took the lead in developing new varieties like the tender mangetouts (snap or sugar peas) and the dwarf petit pois, but it was the French court of Louis XIV that made green peas fashionable. During the reign of William and Mary, Dutch horticultural enthusiasm caught on in England, and England has remained the center of pea development ever since.

The English have developed elaborate horticultural categories for classifying peas, but doubtless their marrowfats stand out as a singular contribution to this class of vegetable. Marrowfats are peas that are sweet and buttery when cooked green, although they are rarely sold that way in England. Their dry seeds are somewhat chalky in appearance and reduce to a creamy texture when used in soups. Most commonly they are canned, and as a canned product, they became a standard feature of English cookery by the late Victorian period. The very best varieties were developed by Thomas Andrew Knight (1759–1838), a genteel horticulturist who was responsible for a wide range of improved fruits and vegetables. Many of Knight's peas were used by later breeders like Thomas Laxton and Alan MacLean to create some of the Victorian varieties that are still popular today, among them Laxton's Fill-basket (1872) and MacLean's Paradise Marrow (also known as Champion of Paris) introduced in the 1850s.

On the other side of the English Channel, the Paris seed house of Vilmorin introduced some of the most popular pea varieties in nineteenth-century Europe, especially several French varieties that are now much sought after by Paris chefs. These would include Gloire de Quimper, a dwarf bush pea of the petit pois type similar to American Wonder, the scimitar-podded Serpette d'Auvergne from the 1830s, and the Pois Géant sans Parchemin (Giant Sugar Pea), which has bicolor flowers, a tell-tale sign of its field pea ancestry.

Through trade contacts with the Dutch and Portuguese, the Chinese and Japanese were introduced to mangetouts (sugar peas) in the seventeenth century. Since then, they have developed numerous new varieties of tender-podded peas popularly referred to in present-day seed catalogs as snow peas or Chinese peas. The sprouts and young pods are commonly employed in stir-fries and should not be confused with commercial American snap peas. Snap peas are large sweet peas with a crisp, edible pod. This name is somewhat misleading since many peas, like the Sickle Pea of the eighteenth century, can be eaten whole like a snap pea when picked very young. Snap peas are really nothing more than an improvement of the old melting marrows or melting sugar peas, as they were called in the 1800s.

Many of the more recently developed varieties, like the Slim Pea, or the odd Parsley Pea with its bushy tendrils, have evolved to reflect very specific shifts in contemporary diet. In the case of the Slim Pea, it makes an ideal freezing pea for small gardens owning to its diminutive vines, not to mention that the name implies weight loss and low calories (peas are very high in calories). Peas were among the first vegetables marketed as frozen food in the 1920s, and today there is increasing commercial interest in varieties that can be frozen and then cooked in the microwave oven. The Parsley Pea represents a much different mentality, since it is a pea that appeals to organic gardeners and followers of macrobiotic or vegetarian diets. Its peas and pods are edible and its tendrils may be cooked and transformed into faux seaweed salad for a meal with the ascetic appointments of Taoist simplicity.

Peas the French Way

Shell your Peas, and pass a quarter of a Pound of Butter, gold Colour, with a Spoonful of Flour; then put in a Quart of Peas, four Onions cut small, and two Cabbages cut as small as the Onions; then put in half a Pint of Gravy, season with Pepper, Salt, and Cloves. Stove this well an Hour, then put in half a Spoonful of fine Sugar, and fry some Artichokes to lay round the Side of the Dish; serve it with a forced Lettuce in the Middle.

SOURCE: Adam's Luxury, and Eve's Cookery (London, 1744).

Bibliography

Hedrick, U. P., ed. The Vegetables of New York: Peas of New York. Albany: State of New York, Education Dept., 1928.

Körber-Grohne, Udelgard. Nutzpflanzen in Deutschland. Stuttgart: Konrad Theiss Verlag, 1988.

Miller, Naomi F., and Kathryn L. Gleason, eds. The Archaeology of Garden and Field. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994.

Vilmorin-Andrieux, M. M. The Vegetable Garden (London, 1885).

Weaver, William Woys. Heirloom Vegetable Gardening: A Master Gardener's Guide to Planting, Growing, Seed Saving, and Cultural History. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1997.

—William Woys Weaver

LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results!

Leguminous plants, members of the family Fabaceae. The plants may be used as green feed but are too succulent to make into hay. Silage is made from the crop residue after harvesting canning peas but is very subject to fungal infestation. Peas used for livestock feed include canning peas (Pisum sativum), field peas (Pisum sativum), chick peas (Cicer arietinum) and cow peas (Vigna sinensis, syn. V. catjang, V. unguiculata). See also lathyrus.

• p. hulls — a source of dietary fiber in manufactured pet foods.
• p.-struck — poisoning by Darling pea. See swainsona.
• p. vine ensilage — is made from the commercial green pea plants after harvesting and removal of pods. It is now more common to harvest pods from the standing crop, which livestock then graze. Ensilage can be poisonous. Lambs show nervous signs soon after birth, an abnormal gait and intermittent recumbency with exercise, and there are degenerative lesions in the cerebral and cerebellar cortices at autopsy.

• Vines
• Baseball - pea: a ball traveling at such a high speed that the batter (or fielder) can barely see it

For other uses and abbreviations, see PEA.

Pea
Peas are contained within a pod
Pea plant: Pisum sativum
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Rosids
Order:	Fabales
Family:	Fabaceae
Subfamily:	Faboideae
Tribe:	Vicieae
Genus:	Pisum
Species:	sativum
Binomial name
Pisum sativum L.

A pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the pod fruit Pisum sativum.^[1] Each pod contains several peas. Peapods are botanically a fruit,^[2] since they contain seeds developed from the ovary of a (pea) flower. However, peas are considered to be a vegetable in cooking. The name is also used to describe other edible seeds from the Fabaceae such as the pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan), the cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), and the seeds from several species of Lathyrus.

P. sativum is an annual plant, with a life cycle of one year. It is a cool season crop grown in many parts of the world; planting can take place from winter to early summer depending on location. The average pea weighs between 0.1 and 0.36 grams.^[3] The immature peas (and in snow peas the tender pod as well) are used as a vegetable, fresh, frozen or canned; varieties of the species typically called field peas are grown to produce dry peas like the split pea shelled from the matured pod. These are the basis of pease porridge and pea soup, staples of medieval cuisine; in Europe, consuming fresh immature green peas was an innovation of Early Modern cuisine.

The wild pea is restricted to the Mediterranean basin and the Near East. The earliest archaeological finds of peas come from Neolithic Syria, Turkey and Jordan. In Egypt, early finds date from ca. 4800–4400 BC in the Nile delta area, and from ca. 3800–3600 BC in Upper Egypt. The pea was also present in Georgia in the 5th millennium BC. Farther east, the finds are younger. Peas were present in Afghanistan ca. 2000 BC, in Harappa, Pakistan, and in northwest India in 2250–1750 BC. In the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, this pulse crop appears in the Gangetic basin and southern India.^[4]

Contents 1 Description 2 Varieties 3 Pests and diseases 4 History 5 Modern culinary use 5.1 Bioplastics 6 Nutritional value 7 Peas in science 8 Peas in medicine 9 Etymology 10 See also 11 Notes 12 References 13 External links

Description

The pea is a most commonly green, occasionally purple^[5] or golden yellow,^[6] pod-shaped vegetable, widely grown as a cool season vegetable crop. The seeds may be planted as soon as the soil temperature reaches 10 °C (50 °F), with the plants growing best at temperatures of 13 to 18 °C (55 to 64 °F). They do not thrive in the summer heat of warmer temperate and lowland tropical climates, but do grow well in cooler, high altitude, tropical areas. Many cultivars reach maturity about 60 days after planting.

Worldwide pea yield

Raw Green Pea

Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy	339 kJ (81 kcal)
Carbohydrates	14.5 g
- Sugars	5.7 g
- Dietary fibre	5.1 g
Fat	0.4 g
Protein	5.4 g
Vitamin A equiv.	38 μg (5%)
- beta-carotene	449 μg (4%)
- lutein and zeaxanthin	2593 μg
Thiamine (vit. B1)	0.3 mg (26%)
Riboflavin (vit. B2)	0.1 mg (8%)
Niacin (vit. B3)	2.1 mg (14%)
Pantothenic acid (B5)	0.1 mg (2%)
Vitamin B6	0.2 mg (15%)
Folate (vit. B9)	65 μg (16%)
Vitamin C	40.0 mg (48%)
Calcium	25.0 mg (3%)
Iron	1.5 mg (12%)
Magnesium	33.0 mg (9%)
Phosphorus	108 mg (15%)
Potassium	244 mg (5%)
Zinc	1.2 mg (13%)
Percentages are relative to US recommendations for adults. Source: USDA Nutrient Database

Peas have both low-growing and vining cultivars. The vining cultivars grow thin tendrils from leaves that coil around any available support and can climb to be 1–2 m high. A traditional approach to supporting climbing peas is to thrust branches pruned from trees or other woody plants upright into the soil, providing a lattice for the peas to climb. Branches used in this fashion are sometimes called pea brush. Metal fences, twine, or netting supported by a frame are used for the same purpose. In dense plantings, peas give each other some measure of mutual support. Pea plants can self-pollinate.^[7]

Varieties

There are many varieties (cultivars) of garden peas. Some of the most common include:

• Alaska, 55 days (smooth seeded)
• Thomas Laxton/Laxton's Progress/Progress #9, 60-65 days
• Mr. Big, 60 days, 2000 AAS winner
• Little Marvel, 63 days, 1934 AAS winner
• Early Perfection, 65 days (This variety is the foundation of many improved varieties and crosses, including Dark-Seeded Early Perfection and Bolero, the latter being one of the most successful commercial varieties.)^[8]
• Kelvedon Wonder, 65 days, 1997 RHS AGM winner
• Homesteader/Lincoln, 67 days (heirloom, known as Greenfeast in AU, NZ)
• Wando, 68 days
• Green Arrow, 70 days
• Tall Telephone/Alderman, 75 days (heirloom, tall climber)

Other variations of P. sativum include:

• Pisum sativum var. macrocarpon is commonly known as the snow pea.
• Pisum sativum var. macrocarpon ser. cv. is known as the sugar or snap pea.

Both of these are eaten whole before the pod reaches maturity and are hence also known as mange-tout, French for "eat all". The snow pea pod is eaten flat, while in sugar/snap peas, the pod becomes cylindrical, but is eaten while still crisp, before the seeds inside develop.

Pests and diseases

Main article: List of pea diseases

The pea leaf weevil (Sitona lineatus) is an insect that damages peas and other pod fruits. It is native to Europe, but has spread to other places such as Alberta, Canada. They are about 3.5 millimetres (0.14 in)—5.5 millimetres (0.22 in) long and are distinguishable by three light-coloured stripes running length-wise down the thorax. The weevil larvae feed on the root nodules of pea plants, which are essential to the plants' supply of nitrogen, and thus diminish leaf and stem growth. Adult weevils feed on the leaves and create a notched, "c-shaped" appearance on the outside of the leaves.^[9]

History

In early times, peas were grown mostly for their dry seeds.^[10] From plants growing wild in the Mediterranean basin, constant selection since the Neolithic dawn of agriculture^[11] improved their yield. In the early 3rd century BCE Theophrastus mentions peas among the pulses that are sown late in the winter because of their tenderness.^[12] In the first century CE Columella mentions them in De re rustica, and Roman legionaries still gathered wild pisi from the sandy soils of Numidia and Palestine, to supplement their rations.

In the Middle Ages, field peas are constantly mentioned, as they were the staple that kept famine at bay, as Charles the Good, count of Flanders noted explicitly in 1124.^[13] In the 13th century the poet Guillaume de Villeneuve noted

J'ay pois en cosse touz noviaux

among the street cries of Paris.^[14]

Green "garden" peas, eaten immature and fresh, were an innovative luxury of Early Modern Europe. In England, the distinction between "field peas" and "garden peas" dates from the early 17th century: John Gerard and John Parkinson both mention garden peas. Sugar peas, which the French soon called mange-tout, for they were consumed pods and all, were introduced to France from the market gardens of Holland in the time of Henri IV, through the French ambassador. Green peas were introduced from Genoa to the court of Louis XIV of France in January 1660, with some staged fanfare; a hamper of them were presented before the King, and then were shelled by the Sovoyan comte de Soissons, who had married a niece of Cardinal Mazarin; little dishes of peas were then presented to the King, the Queen, Cardinal Mazarin and Monsieur, the king's brother.^[15] Immediately established and grown for earliness warmed with manure and protected under glass, they were still a luxurious delicacy in 1696, when Mme de Maintenon and Mme de Sevigné each reported that they were "a fashion, a fury."^[16]

Modern split peas, with their indigestible skins rubbed off, are a development of the later 19th century.

Modern culinary use

Frozen green peas

In modern times peas are usually boiled or steamed, which breaks down the cell walls and makes the taste sweeter and the nutrients more bioavailable. Along with broad beans and lentils, these formed an important part of the diet of most people in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe during the Middle Ages.^[17] By the 17th and 18th centuries, it had become popular to eat peas "green", that is, while they are immature and right after they are picked. This was especially true in France and England, where the eating of green peas was said to be "both a fashion and a madness".^[18] New cultivars of peas were developed by the English during this time, which became known as "garden" or "English" peas. The popularity of green peas spread to North America. Thomas Jefferson grew more than 30 cultivars of peas on his estate.^[19] With the invention of canning and freezing of foods, green peas became available year-round, and not just in the spring as before.

Peas in fried rice

Fresh peas are often eaten boiled and flavored with butter and/or spearmint as a side dish vegetable. Salt and pepper are also commonly added to peas when served. Fresh peas are also used in pot pies, salads and casseroles. Pod peas (particularly sweet cultivars called mange tout and "sugar peas", or the flatter "snow peas," called hé lán dòu, 荷兰豆 in Chinese) are used in stir-fried dishes, particularly those in American Chinese cuisine.^[20] Pea pods do not keep well once picked, and if not used quickly, are best preserved by drying, canning or freezing within a few hours of harvest.

In India, fresh peas are used in various dishes such as aloo matar (curried potatoes with peas) or matar paneer (paneer cheese with peas), though they can be substituted with frozen peas as well. Peas are also eaten raw, as they are sweet when fresh off the bush. Split peas are also used to make dhal, particularly in Guyana, and Trinidad, where there is a significant population of Indians.

Dry, yellow split peas

Dried peas are often made into a soup or simply eaten on their own. In Japan, China, Taiwan and some Southeast Asian countries, including Thailand and Malaysia, peas are roasted and salted, and eaten as snacks. In the UK, dried yellow split peas are used to make pease pudding (or "pease porridge"), a traditional dish. In North America, a similarly traditional dish is split pea soup.

Pea soup is eaten in many other parts of the world, including northern Europe, parts of middle Europe, Russia, Iran, Iraq and India.^[21] In Sweden it is called ärtsoppa, and is eaten as a traditional Swedish food which predates the Viking era. This food was made from a fast-growing pea that would mature in a short growing season. Ärtsoppa was especially popular among the many poor who traditionally only had one pot and everything was cooked together for a dinner using a tripod to hold the pot over the fire.

In Chinese cuisine, the tender new growth [leaves and stem] (豆苗; dòu miáo) are commonly used in stir-fries. Much like picking the leaves for tea, the farmers pick the tips off of the pea plant.

In Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, and other parts of the Mediterranean, peas are made into a stew with meat and potatoes.

In Hungary and Serbia, pea soup is often served with dumplings and spiced with hot paprika.

In the United Kingdom, dried, rehydrated and mashed marrowfat peas, known by the public as mushy peas, are popular, originally in the north of England, but now ubiquitously, and especially as an accompaniment to fish and chips or meat pies, particularly in fish and chip shops. Sodium bicarbonate is sometimes added to soften the peas. In 2005, a poll of 2,000 people revealed the pea to be Britain's seventh favourite culinary vegetable.^[22]

Processed peas are mature peas which have been dried, soaked and then heat treated (processed) to prevent spoilage—in the same manner as pasteurising. Cooked peas are sometimes sold dried and coated with wasabi, salt, or other spices.

Bioplastics

Bioplastics can be made using pea starch.

Nutritional value

Peas are high in fiber, protein, vitamins, minerals, and lutein. Dry weight is about one-quarter protein and one-quarter sugar.^[23] Pea seed peptide fractions have less ability to scavenge free radicals than glutathione, but greater ability to chelate metals and inhibit linoleic acid oxidation.^[24]

Peas in science

Pea flowers

In the mid-19th century, Austrian monk Gregor Mendel's observations of pea pods led to the principles of Mendelian genetics, the foundation of modern genetics.^[25] He ended up growing and examining about 28,000 pea plants in the course of his experiments.^[26] Mendel chose peas for his experiments because he could grow them easily, develop pure-bred strains, protect them from cross-pollination, and control their pollination. Mendel cross-bred tall & dwarf pea plants, green & yellow peas, purple & white flowers, wrinkled & smooth peas, and a few other traits. He then observed the resulting offspring. In each of these cases, one trait is dominant and all the offspring, or Filial-1 generation, showed the dominant trait. Then he crossed members of the F₁ generation together and observed their offspring, the Filial-2 generation. The F₂ plants had the dominant trait in approximately a 3:1 ratio. Mendel reasoned that each parent had a 'vote' in the appearance of the offspring and the non-dominant or recessive trait appeared only when it was inherited from both parents. He did further experiments that showed each trait is separately inherited. Unwittingly, Mendel had solved a major problem with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution: how could new traits be preserved and not blended back into the population? But Darwin never learned about it. Mendel's work was published in an obscure Austrian journal and was not rediscovered until about 1900. ^[27]

Peas in medicine

Some people are allergic to peas, as well as lentils.^[28]

Etymology

According to etymologists, the term pea was taken from the Latin pisum, which is the latinisation of the Greek πίσον (pison), neut. of πίσος (pisos), "pea".^[29][30] It was adopted into English as the noun pease (plural peasen), as in pease pudding. However, by analogy with other plurals ending in -s, speakers began construing pease as a plural and constructing the singular form by dropping the "s", giving the term "pea". This process is known as back-formation.

The name "marrowfat pea" for mature dried peas is recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary as early as 1733. The fact that an export cultivar popular in Japan is called Maro has led some people to assume mistakenly that the English name "marrowfat" is derived from Japanese.

See also

• Bean
• Black pea
• Black-eyed pea
• Dixie lee pea
• Mushy peas
• Snap pea
• Snow pea
• Split pea
• Sweet pea
• Yellow pea

Notes

1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary - Pea
2. ^ Rogers, Speed (2007). Man and the Biological World Read Books. pp. 169–170. ISBN 978-1-4067-3304-4 retrieved on 2009-04-15.
3. ^ Pea
4. ^ Zohary, Daniel and Hopf, Maria (2000). Domestication of Plants in the Old World, third edition. Oxford: University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-850356-9 p. 105–107
5. ^ Purple podded peas
6. ^ Pea Golden Podded, The Diggers Club
7. ^ Alternative Field Crops Manual: Dry Field Pea
8. ^ "Vegetable Cultivar Descriptions for North America". http://cuke.hort.ncsu.edu/cucurbit/wehner/vegcult/peagreenal.html. 
9. ^ Barkley, Shelley (2007-05-02). "Pea Leaf Weevil". Agriculture and Rural Development website. Government of Alberta. http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$Department/deptdocs.nsf/all/prm11287. Retrieved 2009-04-05. 
10. ^ Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, A History of Food, 2nd ed. 2009:38f.
11. ^ Peas have been found in the Neolithic site of Abeurador in the south of France (Toussaint-Samat).
12. ^ Theophrastus, VIII.i.4.
13. ^ Edict quoted in Michel Pitrat and Claude Four, Histoires de légumes: Des origines à l'orée du XXIe siècle, "Le pois au cours des siècles" :353.
14. ^ Pitrat and Four
15. ^ An account is in Toussaint-Samat.
16. ^ Quoted by Michel Pitrat and Claude Four.
17. ^ Bianchini, F.; Corbetta, F. (1976), The Complete Book of Fruits and Vegetables, New York: Crown, p. 40, ISBN 978-0-517-52033-8 
18. ^ Hedrick, U.P. (1919), "Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants", Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year 1919 II, Albany: J.B Lyon Company, State Printers, http://food.oregonstate.edu/glossary/p/pplant189.html, retrieved Feb. 26, 2010 
19. ^ Kafka, B. (2005), Vegetable Love, New York: Artisan, p. 297, ISBN 978-1-57965-168-8 
20. ^ Healthnotes | Snow Peas | Selecting & Varieties
21. ^ "Sanningen om ärtsoppan" (Swedish)^{[dead link]}
22. ^ Wainwright, Martin (2005-05-23). "Onions come top for British palates". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/may/23/britishidentity.foodanddrink. 
23. ^ Jegtvig, Shereen (July 17, 2007). "Peas". Nutrition. About.com. http://nutrition.about.com/od/fruitsandvegetables/p/peas.htm. Retrieved 2011-01-28. 
24. ^ Pownall TL, Udenigwe CC, Aluko RE (2010). "Amino acid composition and antioxidant properties of pea seed ( Pisum sativum L.) enzymatic protein hydrolysate fractions". JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD CHEMISTRY 58 (8): 4712–4718. doi:10.1021/jf904456r. PMID 20359226. 
25. ^ Gregor Mendel: The Pea Plant Experiment
26. ^ The Garden Pea Retrieved 14 April 2012.
27. ^ Pitman, Sean D. The Father of Genetics May 2002. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
28. ^ Sanchez-Monge, R.; G. Lopez-Torrejon, C. Y. Pascual, J. Varela, M. Martin-Esteban, G. Salcedo (2004). "Vicilin and convicilin are potential major allergens from pea". Clinical & Experimental Allergy 34 (11): 1747–1753. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2222.2004.02085.x. ISSN 0954-7894. 
29. ^ Oxford English Dictionary
30. ^ πίσος, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library

References

• European Association for Grain Legume Research (AEP). Pea. http://www.grainlegumes.com/default.asp?id_biblio=52^{[dead link]}.
• Hernández Bermejo, J. E. & León, J., (1992). Neglected crops: 1492 from a different perspective, Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Contents
• Muehlbauer, F. J. and Tullu, A., (1997). Pisum sativum L. Purdue University. Pea
• Oelke, E. A., Oplinger E. S., et al. (1991). Dry Field Pea. University of Wisconsin.Dry Field Pea

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pisum sativum

Wikibooks Cookbook has a recipe/module on Pea

• Sorting Pisum names
• USDA plant profile
• http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - ært

idioms:

• as two peas in a pod    som to dråber vand
• pea green    ærtegrøn
• pea jacket    stortrøje
• pea soup    gule ærter, ærtesuppe
• pea souper    røgfyldt, gul tåge

Nederlands (Dutch)
erwt

Français (French)
n. - (Bot) pois

idioms:

• like two peas in a pod    (se ressembler) comme deux gouttes d'eau
• pea green    vert salade
• pea jacket    caban
• pea soup    soupe aux pois cassés, brouillard épais (arg)
• pea souper    purée de pois

Deutsch (German)
n. - Erbse

idioms:

• like two peas in a pod    wie ein Ei dem anderen
• pea green    erbsengrün
• pea jacket    Pijacke, Matrosenjacke
• pea soup    Erbsensuppe
• pea souper    dichter gelblicher Nebel

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (ο καρπός) μπιζέλι, αρακάς

idioms:

• as two peas in a pod    όμοιοι σαν δυο σταγόνες νερό
• pea green    ανοιχτοπράσινο(ς)
• pea jacket    (ναυτική) πατατούκα, μπελαμάνα
• pea soup    μπιζελόσουπα, (Βρετ., καθομ.) πηχτή ομίχλη
• pea souper    (Βρετ., καθομ.) πυκνή ομίχλη

Italiano (Italian)
pisello

idioms:

• as two peas (in a pod)    come due gocce d'acqua
• pea green    verde pisello
• pea jacket    giacca di marinaio
• pea soup    zuppa di piselli
• pea souper    nebbione

Português (Portuguese)
n. - ervilha (f)

idioms:

• as two peas in a pod    tal e qual
• pea green    verde-ervilha
• pea jacket    vagem de ervilha
• pea soup    sopa de ervilhas
• pea souper    nevoeiro espesso

Русский (Russian)
горох, горошина

idioms:

• as two peas in a pod    как две капли воды
• pea green    ярко-зеленый
• pea jacket    ветровка
• pea soup    гороховый суп, густой туман
• pea souper    густой туман

Español (Spanish)
n. - guisante, arveja, chícharo

idioms:

• like two peas in a pod    parecerse como dos gotas de agua, exactamente iguales
• pea green    verde claro, verde manzana
• pea jacket    chaqueta marinera
• pea soup    sopa de arvejas, sopa de guisantes
• pea souper    puré de arvejas, niebla espesa

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - ärta

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
豌豆

idioms:

• as two peas in a pod    一模一样
• pea green    淡绿色, 青豆色
• pea jacket    水手穿的厚呢短大衣
• pea soup    豌豆汤
• pea souper    浓雾, 大雾

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 豌豆

idioms:

• as two peas in a pod    一模一樣
• pea green    淡綠色, 青豆色
• pea jacket    水手穿的厚呢短大衣
• pea soup    豌豆湯
• pea souper    濃霧, 大霧

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 완두(콩), 완두 비슷한 콩과의 식물

idioms:

• as two peas in a pod    꼬투리안의 두 완두콩처럼

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - エンドウ, エンドウ豆

idioms:

• pea green    黄緑色
• pea jacket    ピージャケット
• pea soup    エンドウのスープ, 黄色の濃霧
• pea souper    エンドウのスープ

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) بسلي, بسله, بازلاء‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮אפונה‬

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