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You can eat a pea pod after all
Cross section of pea pod – Stockfoto
Kelly, you are right. I think beyond NYC, where almost anything is available, actual English peas in a pod are almost impossible to find. They are like sour cherries on the rare occasion you stumble across those: just not commercially available in the produce aisle. Too short a season. Too hard to pick, too hard to pod, and not widely familiar or appreciated by most people. But there is nothing like a nice fresh pea. Its hard to justify the space they take up even in a home garden because of the work to yield ratio, and the fact that a frozen bag from the supermarket is pretty good and not very expensive. Let alone use paid labor to pick them. Even green beans can be hard to find in CSAs and farmers markets. So shelling peas are even more rare. We have raised them as a special, once a year treat in our garden. They seldom make it OUT of the garden. Theyve been eaten by then! But I just love them.
The genus Pisum contains two species, Pisum fulvum and Pisum sativum. However, two subspecies of P. sativum, ssp. elatius and ssp. humile, are the main genetic base for all existing pea cultivars, with differences in pod and seed size as well as resistance to diseases. Commercially, there are tree main types of peas, classified based on their harvest stage:
Peas take from 7 to 11 weeks to reach maturity depending on variety. Normally the peas are ripe at the bottom of the plant first. Pick the pods of pea producing varieties when they have swelled and are nearly rounded but before the peas inside start to show their shape through the pod – they’ll be touch and starchy if you let them go this far. Not that most of us need encouragement to do so, but regular picking will encourage plants to develop more peas.
