SC - Feast Budgets

[Dottie Elliott]

In a message dated 97-11-20 23:35:56 EST, you write:

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

My apologies for not having this written out but  I had not yet gotten to it
before the subject popped up. :-) Below are my notes. Fascinating in some
areas. ;-)

Ras

Peas- History of

1) Extensively used by Egytians, Romans, Greeks.
2) Native of Mediterranean basin, Nile Vallry, mountians of Asia.
3) Found in archeological sites in Herault , France dating to 7000 B.C.E.
4) Gathered by Roman Legions from sand dunes around Palestine to supllement
rations.

Word origins

1) pea( modern coined singular) from pison (Greek)=pisum (Latin)= pise (Old
English)= pease (later English)= pea (coined singuler because pease was
misunderstood as a plural)

Use of Peas

1) Cultivated peas mainly eaten dry by Romans and in medieval times; e/g/
 dried peas cooked with bacon.

Green Peas ( Note: Found this info astonishing)

1) Sugar peas (mange-tout) introduced to France in 1600 C.E. from Holland.
2) Green peas (petit pois) introduced to France in 1660 C.E. by the Sieur
Audiger returning from a mission to Genoa where he had hoped to learn the
secret of making liqueurs (:-0). The Comte de Soissons shelled the peas. They
were prepared and served in tiny dishes> one for the Queen, one for the
Cardibnal and the King and his brother each had a tiny dish of them. The
official pronouncement was, " All declared with one voice that nothing could
be better or more of a novelty, and that nothing like them, in that season,
had ever been  seen in France before".

Curious fact

Split peas introduced as food at the end of the Victorian Age.

Sources

History of Food
Food in Histroy
The Fieldbook of Natural History
The Catalogue of Foods

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