[Sca-cooks] peas vs. beans

[Sharon Palmer]

>  The black-eyed pea, for example, is called a pea in English, but is 
>placed with beans in Italian, and being a member of genus Vigna is 
>truly neither a pea nor a bean but is related to both.

Old world Aduki and mung "beans" are also Vigna.


>For differentiation in most of period, I believe you will find that 
>most of the peas available were of the sort that divide in two 
>producing split peas, while the beans retained their unity.

I'm not sure this is a valid distinction.  Split peas are the result 
of a milling operation, but beans can be split too.  I'm not sure how 
common it was to have peas milled in period

Rumpolt has numerous recipes for peas, all of them for unmilled peas, 
because it tells you to remove the hull. Sometimes by soaking in lye 
and washing the hulls off, some by cooking with the hull and pressing 
through a sieve, leaving the hull behind.   I tried this once, and it 
looked and tasted exactly like common split peas.

There is a bean recipe that tells you to remove the hull too. 
Rumpolt's "Bonen" is likely black eyed peas.

Ranvaig