Peas
In the English way.-Put them into boiling water with some salt and a bunch of green mint, and let them boil briskly for twenty minutes. Drain them in a colander-and see that it is done thoroughly. After this, all that is necessary is to mix them with fresh butter. The most usual English way is simply to put a pat or two of butter among them after they are dished. French cooks, however, like to toss them with the butter on the fire for a minute before serving.
Peas in the French way. -1. The true French way is to put a quart of peas with two ounces of butter and one of flour into a stewpan, and mix them over the fire till the butter is melted. Add to them a faggot of parsley, twelve small onions, two lettuces cut in the Julienne way, a little salt and sugar, and a pint of broth or gravy. Put the lid on and stew the peas for half an hour on a slow fire. Then remove the faggot and add an ounce of butter, together with chopped parsley, and serve. 2. The foregoing is the true French style for Frenchmen, but there is another style for outsiders, and this is what is commonly known in England as Petits pois à la Française. The peas are first of all to be boiled in the ordinary English way, but without the bunch of mint. They are then to be drained, and (supposing the quantity of peas to be a quart) they are again to be put on the fire with two ounces of butter, a dessertspoonful of flour, some pepper, salt and sugar, together with a small tumblerful of the liquor they have boiled in. Simmer them thus for five minutes, and at the last finish them with a leason of a gill of cream mixed into two yolks of eggs.
Peas in the Flemish way. - Take about a pound of good bacon; cut it into small dice; pass it in butter, and moisten it with a little broth. Next add to it two or three lettuces- Peach cos-lettuce by preference, -either whole or cut to pieces. Fill up with water and boil for half an hour or even more; for, though one can eat lettuces raw, they insist on being boiled a good deal if they are to be boiled at all. At the end of half an hour put in a pint of young peasor any greater quantity. See that there is water and salt enough, and let the boiling go on for another half-hour, so that the lettuce may have at least an hour in all. There is a delightful dish of peas, which are made to go a long way and to suggest no idea of stint, by means of the lettuce which eke them out.
Pea Soup. The following receipt applies to either fresh peas or the dried ones, whether green or yellow. If they are dried, however, they must be soaked for twelve hours beforehand. Put a quart of peas into a stewpan, with a carrot, an onion, a leek, a faggot of parsley, a pound of streaky bacon, and three quarts of water. Boil them for two or three hours; then remove the bacon, the carrot and the faggot, pass all else, including the onion, through a tammy, and the soup (if sufficiently hot) is ready. When this soup is made of fresh peas, the French call it St. Germains, and serve it with a few whole peas floating on the top, to show what it is.
PEACH is a corruption of the word Persia-it is the amygdalus Persica, or Persica vulgaris. It has more than once already, in these pages, been pointed out that an almond, a nectarine, and a peach, have a curious identity -the same, but yet how different! All three fruits may be found growing on the same tree, and sometimes on the same branch. More than this: the fruit is sometimes found to be a peach on one side, a nectarine on the other. Both peaches and nectarines are divided into two chief classes-the Freestones and the Clingstones. The former are always the best, and may be easily recognised, Take a knife, and in the line of the equator cut round Pepper them to the stone; the upper hemisphere may then be lifted off clean, without any difficulty. These are the peaches for dessert. The clingstones are not so good, are firmer of flesh, and are best reserved for stewing and for fritters. Before using them for fritters, pare them and steep them for an hour in Kirschenwasser and sugar.
Stewing them in syrup is a very simple matter. The peaches may then be presented alone in the syrup, with the addition of a few of their kernels; or they may be served, like apricots, with rice.
The rose-pink, which is sometimes used for colouring, and which has been already mentioned in connection with anchovy butter, is obtained from the peach tree.
PEPPER is the berry of a climbing Oriental shrub, bright red when ripe and black when dried. This is black pepper. Within the berry are seeds which, when removed from the surrounding pulp and skin and dried separately, are called white pepper. This is not so powerful as the whole or black pepper, and it is called Mignonette pepper before it is ground, as unground black pepper is known by the name of peppercorns.
Much as we value pepper, it is difficult to think of it as being at one time in Europe so precious and so scarce that it was as good as money. In France, at that time, the taxes might be paid in pepper; so also church dues and rent. We have all heard of a peppercorn rent. Pepper was in fact cash; and to pay in pepper, in spice, or in specie-all words meaning the same thing-became equivalent to paying in cash. In token of which to this day specie is a common name for the hardest of hard cashgold and silver as distinct from paper money. Red pepper comes from a different shrub, the capsicum, and was unknown before the discovery of America.