SC - weird Anglo/Saxon question

[cclark at vicon.net]

'Lainie wrote:
> ... were there snow peas in A/S England? Peas or
>beans? But Snow peas? I think of them in Chinese food, not European...

With good reason. According to _The International Dictionary of Food &
Nutrition_ by Anderson and Anderson, the Chinese word for snow pea is
"sywe-dou" (third tone, fourth tone) (also spelled xuedou, perhaps hsue-tou
or hsue-to, etc.). This translates literally as "snow bean/pea." I doubt
that the same word (for locally grown garden vegetables) would appear in
both Chinese and Old English. So presumably the term "snow pea" was a modern
English translation from modern Chinese.

Alex Clark/Henry of Maldon

============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================