[Sca-cooks] OOP-French View of English Food

[Terry Decker]

Grey or gray peas get their name from the color of the seed.  You will find 
that there are both field and sugar varieties of gray pea.

In this particular instance, the pea under discussion is probably the Dutch 
gray field pea.  It was under cultivation in the Low Countries and appears 
to have been introduced into England in the late 15th or early 16th Century 
at the same time as the orange carrot.

I wouldn't read much into a reference of the commoners eating "grey pease." 
Peas were fairly common poverty fair in England for centuries.

Bear


> Otherwise, I've never seen field peas called gray peas  before:
> "The Common people feed much upon Grey Pease,"
>
> I also wonder if this is an early reference to British vegetarians  (who
> seem to have been the first to be at all organized):
>
> Jim Chevallier
> www.chezjim.com