The pea, although treated as a vegetable in cooking, is botanically a fruit; the term is most commonly used to describe the small spherical seeds or the pods of the legume Pisum sativum.
Originally the word was "pease," and it was singular. The sound on the end was reanalyzed as a plural 's' marker, and at the end of the 17th Century people started talking about one "pea." The older form lives on in the nursery rhyme "Pease-porridge hot, pease-porridge cold…"
Peas have been cultivated for thousands of years, the sites of cultivation have been described in southern Syria and southeastern Turkey, and also in ancient China.
The ancient Romans grew at least 37 varieties of peas.
There were no known "green peas" in Britain until after the Norman Conquest of England. It was noted in the middle of the 12th century that among foods being stored at the Barking Nunnery, near London, were "green peas for Lent."
Dried peas were one of the principal foods for the poor in medieval times as they were cheap and filling.
The Victorians dyed canned peas green with toxic copper sulphate.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known reference to mushy peas was in 1968.
The official world record for pea-eating is held by Eric “Badlands” Booker at 9.5 one-pound bowls of peas in 12 minutes.
On average, there are eight peas in a pod.
Black-eyed peas are not peas. They are beans.
Sources Mentalfloss.com, Food For Thought by Ed Pearce, Daily Express
Originally the word was "pease," and it was singular. The sound on the end was reanalyzed as a plural 's' marker, and at the end of the 17th Century people started talking about one "pea." The older form lives on in the nursery rhyme "Pease-porridge hot, pease-porridge cold…"
Peas have been cultivated for thousands of years, the sites of cultivation have been described in southern Syria and southeastern Turkey, and also in ancient China.
The ancient Romans grew at least 37 varieties of peas.
There were no known "green peas" in Britain until after the Norman Conquest of England. It was noted in the middle of the 12th century that among foods being stored at the Barking Nunnery, near London, were "green peas for Lent."
Dried peas were one of the principal foods for the poor in medieval times as they were cheap and filling.
The Victorians dyed canned peas green with toxic copper sulphate.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known reference to mushy peas was in 1968.
The official world record for pea-eating is held by Eric “Badlands” Booker at 9.5 one-pound bowls of peas in 12 minutes.
On average, there are eight peas in a pod.
Black-eyed peas are not peas. They are beans.
Sources Mentalfloss.com, Food For Thought by Ed Pearce, Daily Express
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