Peas, Boiled Green
INGREDIENTS.-Green peas to each 1/2 gallon of water allow 1 small teaspoonful of moist sugar, 1 heaped tablespoonful of salt.
AVERAGE COST, from 8d. to 1s. per peck.
PEASE PUDDING. pan, and, when the peas are nicely thickened, dress them high in the dish, and serve.
TIME.-Altogether, hour.
SEASONABLE from June to the end of August.
A bare-bones Victorian method for fresh shelled peas: a large volume of salted, lightly sugared water and a short boil. The proportions are given per gallon of water, so scale them to your pan.
- The seasoning ratioOne heaped tablespoon of salt and one teaspoon of sugar per gallon of water (an imperial gallon, about 4.5 litres). That is roughly a tablespoon of salt to 4 quarts, a normal modern seasoning level for vegetable water; the sugar may be intended to compensate for peas that have lost sweetness since picking.
- Cooking timeYoung shelled peas need 3 to 5 minutes at a rolling boil; older, starchier ones 8 to 10. Test by eating one rather than by the clock, and drain the moment they are tender, as peas turn grey and mealy with only a minute or two of overcooking.
- "Moist sugar"Victorian moist sugar was unrefined or partly refined cane sugar, damp and pale brown. Ordinary granulated or light brown sugar does the same job here.
- A peck of peasA peck is two dry gallons, about 8 to 9 lb of peas in the pod, which shells out to roughly 2 to 3 lb of peas. The 8d. to 1s. price is a period market note, not a shopping instruction.
- Frozen peasCommercially frozen peas are blanched within hours of picking and are sweeter than most fresh peas sold in the pod. They need 2 to 3 minutes in boiling water and no sugar at all.
- Skip the bicarbonateSome Victorian and Edwardian cooks added soda to the water to keep peas green. It softens the skins to mush and destroys thiamine; a hard boil in plenty of water, uncovered, keeps the colour well enough.
- MintBeeton's fuller text of this recipe boils a small bunch of mint with the peas. Add it to the water rather than to the drained peas if you want the flavour through them.
- ServingAbout 1 lb of shelled peas serves four as a side dish. Drain thoroughly, toss with a knob of butter and a little pepper, and serve at once.
Green peas eaten fresh in the pod were a luxury in Britain well into the seventeenth century, when a vogue for them is generally traced to French fashion, and by the Victorian period they had become one of the characteristic summer vegetables of the English table hem seasonable only from June to the end of August. Before freezing and air freight, that window was real: peas convert their sugars to starch within a day or two of picking, and the teaspoon of sugar in the water may suggest that market peas were rarely as sweet as garden ones. The book's habit of quoting an average cost per peck reflects a readership buying produce by dry measure from a greengrocer or barrow rather than by weight in a shop.