SC - green beans

[LrdRas@aol.com]

>- ------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
>Date:          Tue, 18 Nov 1997 14:02:17 -0500
>Reply-to:      Georgette Heyer Discussion List <HEYER at HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM>
>From:          Judith France <Jaynire at AOL.COM>
>Subject:       Re: [HEYER] peas again
>To:            HEYER at HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM
>
><<          Do you know the history of the peas? I am fairly certain
>that I
> read that they were expensice and not just because they were out of
> season or sanything. I think it was that people in general were not
> eating them. I have seen other references to green peas at suppers
> but the writers might have been influenced by GH. >>
>
>I don't know the history of peas.  However, I do know the season when
>they are available from the garden is not real long, so when people
>were more dependent on seasonal items, anything grown in a hothouse or
>imported from a warmer or different climate would have had to be more
>expensive.  Were not the peas used in porridge (pease porridge hot...)
>and soups common - the dried version available at any season?
>                                 Judy
>
>jstaplet at adm.law.du.edu
>University of Denver
>College of Law

Green peas are and were a cheap and plentiful food in our period of study.
Easily grown and dried, recipes abound using (yech....and don't you say a
word, Adamantius) dried peas. Fresh peas were seasonal, but highly prized
for natural sweetness. Several methods were developed to try and preserve
them, from immersing and keeping in water, to sealing in butter for short
periods (this actually works for a time, but the peas lose their color after
a week or so. They still taste good, however). In dried form peas were used
in may ways such as porridge (pottage) and mush, as a thickening agent, as
"pulse" which was flour made in part or wholly with pea, barley, and bean
meal, and in horse-bread, made of the afore mentioned pea and bean/barley
meal. Horse bread was human food, not horse food. These things were all
available to the common man. In fact, Horse Bread would not have made it to
the tables of the nobility, nor would any item made from "pulse". 

This is true for western Europe and Britain, your author's area of interest.
I cannot speak for other areas that fall into our range of study.

Perhaps Ras could jog my memory----weren't peas a Roman Import to the
British Aisles?



Aoife

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