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Peas, Canned
Canned peas should be opened as soon as possible, one hour of exposure to the air being none too long to restore to them their natural flavor. Place one tablespoon of butter in a saucepan, with pepper and salt to taste; turn in the peas, and cook for five minutes, when, if of good quality, they will be thoroughly done.
A method rather than a formula: the peas arrive cooked, and the only work is warming and seasoning them. The instructions assume a can whose contents tasted noticeably of the tin.
- The hour of airingCanned peas of this period were widely said to pick up a metallic, flat flavor from the can and its soldered seams, which is presumably what the airing is meant to dispel; the recipe asks only that the can be opened early, not that the peas be turned out. Modern cans are lacquer-lined and the problem has largely gone; a short stand after draining does no harm but is no longer necessary.
- QuantitiesNo amount of peas is given, only the tablespoon of butter. A tablespoon is about right for a standard modern can, drained, which will serve two or three as a side dish.
- Drain the liquidThe recipe says only "turn in the peas." Drain them first, or the butter will not coat anything and you will be left simmering peas in salty packing water. Reserve a spoonful of the liquid if the pan looks dry.
- Five minutes is generousCanned peas are fully cooked in the can. Two to three minutes over moderate heat is enough to warm them through; longer and the skins split and the color turns olive.
- Salt lateMost canned peas are packed with salt already. Taste before seasoning rather than salting the pan at the start, as the recipe directs.
- Period seasoningsA pinch of sugar, a sprig of mint, or a spoonful of cream are additions that turn up elsewhere with peas and all suit the dish. None appear here.
Canned peas were among the earliest commercially successful canned vegetables, and by the time this book appeared they were a familiar year-round pantry article in American households. The insistence on airing the peas before cooking is a small record of what early cans could taste like: the flavor commonly called "tinny" was attributed to contact with the metal and its soldered seams, and airing or scalding were among the domestic remedies offered. Advice of this kind persisted in cookbooks for some time after improvements in can linings had made it largely unnecessary, which is a fair reminder that printed household wisdom tends to outlive the conditions that produced it.